EF0 tornado, Lipscomb, Texas, May 23, 2019

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

May 23, 2019

Touchdown

8:43 PM CDT (01:43 UTC)

Lifted

8:48 PM CDT (01:48 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

4.5 miles (7.2 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lipscomb County

Touchdown point

36.172, -100.443

Lift-off point

36.226, -100.398

Record number

1905231943-01

14 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS AMA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• Oil field tanks blown over.
• limbs snapped. Large limb or small tree with snapped trunk deposited into field.
• Oil tank flipped. Barb wire fences destroyed both sides of road.
• West edge of damage. Fences down. Oil filed equipment debris in road.

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

A vigorous upper level low pressure system developed across southern Nevada. Significant wind shear and instability developed as moisture was drawn north into the Panhandles setting the stage for a very long duration and higher end severe episode. Initially, elevated supercell storms developed in the NW Texas Panhandles on the cold side of a nearly stationary frontal boundary and moved northeast into the central Oklahoma Panhandle as the first of multiple disturbances moved across the area. Hail up to golf ball size and wind damage was reported with these storms. ||During the afternoon hours, upper level disturbances, daytime heating and the very pronounced frontal boundary stretching from near Amarillo northeast into Beaver County, Oklahoma became the main catalyst for surface based supercells, which produced very large hail up to baseball size and several tornadoes. Two very large and long tracked tornadoes produced damage across the northeast Panhandles. Both were rated EF-2s based on the damage, but they remained in very rural areas throughout their life-cycle. A total of eight tornadoes occurred during this event, however three of these were landspouts that developed along an outflow produced by storms early in the event. With the loss of daytime heating, supercells congealed into a line which produced gusty winds and hail across the eastern Texas Panhandle before finally moving east and exiting the region in the early morning hours on May 24th.

Survey was estimated using radar and chaser video. Occurred in open country and no damage was reported.

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

15 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:28 UTC, 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:47 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:12 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:04 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 Amarillo radar (KAMA), 158 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:45 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

18 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.