EF2 tornado, Tankersly Arpt to San Angelo, 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 mphthis tornado

   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 mph

   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

EF2

Date

May 18, 2019

Touchdown

4:57 AM CDT (09:57 UTC)

Lifted

5:46 AM CDT (10:46 UTC)

On the ground

49 minutes

Path length

17.6 miles (28.3 km)

Path width

1,760 yards (1609 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$7.5 million

County

Tom Green County

Touchdown point

31.323, -100.650

Lift-off point

31.491, -100.427

Record number

1905180357-01

60 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SJT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 132 mph.

• Fence damage and a few shingles off roof.
• Shingles missing on northeast side of home.
• Piece of shingle lodged into metal fence.
• Roof lifted off off storage unit. Some of the contents inside were thrown across Loop 306.

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.

An EF-2 Tornado began in Dove Creek, about 16 miles southwest of San Angelo. This tornado removed the roofs from several homes and caused some of the outer walls to collapse. It blew out a wall of a large metal building at the Boys Ranch, destroyed several outbuildings and continued to damage trees as it crossed over Twin Buttes Reservoir. Then the tornado entered the Southland Subdivision, located about 5.5 miles southwest of San Angelo where the tornado broadened to nearly a mile wide as it weakened. It damaged shingles on many roofs and a chimney, it toppled fences, broke windows, uprooted some trees and broke many tree limbs across the Southland Subdivision. The tornado continued to cause similar damage as it moved northeast into the College Hills Subdivision. The tornado then began to decrease in width and increase in strength near Angelo State University (ASU). The tornado damaged roofs, broke a large church window, and destroyed a gasoline canopy, fences and trees near ASU. This tornado even tore HVAC Units from the MHMR Building near downtown San Angelo. The twister crossed Loop 306 near Main Street and intensified to an EF-2 as it struck the Bradford Elementary Subdivision in the north part of San Angelo. It destroyed 39 homes and damaged about 90 homes as it removed residential roofs and collapsed outer walls. The strong tornado threw an automobile into a residence and snapped tree trunks. Two injuries were reported.

The deaths

0 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS SJT issued a tornado warning for this county at 09:49 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:15 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 San Angelo radar (KSJT), 6 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:57 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.