EF3 tornado, Crews, Texas, May 18, 2019

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mphthis tornado

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

EF3

Date

May 18, 2019

Touchdown

7:52 AM CDT (12:52 UTC)

Lifted

8:02 AM CDT (13:02 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

5.8 miles (9.3 km)

Path width

1,760 yards (1609 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Runnels County

Touchdown point

31.835, -99.779

Lift-off point

31.911, -99.736

Record number

1905180652-01

55 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SJT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 155 mph.

• Debris in the field from a destroyed cabin.
• Roof carried 1/4 mile, second story pieces thrown 50-100 yds
• Trees behind house with debris. Home was built in 1800s
• Wall blown out, second story completely removed and thrown.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A highly sheared environment coupled with a very unstable airmass resulted in the development of strong tornadoes during the early morning hours of May 18. At least seven of the eight tornadoes damaged or destroyed several hundred homes across portions of West Central Texas. One of the supercells produced four long track strong tornadoes.

This large, wide path tornado remained mostly in the rural part of eastern Runnels County. It damaged and even snapped tree trunks. It toppled four high tension steel towers and destroyed another. The tornado also destroyed a few outbuildings and a Recreational Vehicle. The debris was thrown for at least a half mile.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

33 minutes of warning. NWS SJT issued a tornado warning for this county at 12:19 UTC, 33 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 13:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:21 UTC and running to 15:00 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:55 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Dyess AFB radar (KDYX), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:49 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

24 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.