Unrated tornado, Vigo Park, Texas, May 7, 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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

May 7, 2019

Touchdown

5:56 PM CDT (22:56 UTC)

Lifted

6:10 PM CDT (23:10 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

5.3 miles (8.6 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Swisher County

Touchdown point

34.681, -101.641

Lift-off point

34.713, -101.555

Record number

1905071656-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LUB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 74 mph.

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

By 1400 CST on the seventh, another consecutive day of severe weather was underway across the South Plains of West Texas. A dryline mixed into West Texas and stalled around the US Highway 385 corridor. Discrete supercells developed along the entire dryline through the South Plains. Fortunately, many of these thunderstorms did not produce severe hail. The strongest thunderstorm of the day initially developed in Lamb County and slowly moved northeast into Hale and Swisher Counties. Numerous storm chasers observed this storm and documented several tornadoes during its life cycle. The first tornado was observed approximately five miles southwest of Edmonson in Hale County. However, the NWS storm survey team was unable to locate any damage due to its brief duration and lack of damage indicators. Therefore, an EFU rating was assigned. The next tornado was observed several miles southwest of Tulia in Swisher County. Although this multi vortex tornado persisted for several minutes, no damage indicators were impacted, so an EFU rating was assigned to this tornado as well. The third tornado was observed about 4-5 miles northwest of Vigo Park and was the largest of the three. Similar to the other two tornadoes, no damage indicators were found by the NWS storm survey team, so a rating of EFU was assigned. Extremely strong rear flank downdraft winds were observed with this third tornado west of Vigo Park near the intersection of Farm to Market Roads 146 and 2301. A metal barn was partially destroyed and 19 wood transmission lines were snapped. Due to the slow moving nature of these storms, extremely heavy rainfall occurred in central Swisher County which brought an estimated three to six inches of rainfall over a short period of time. A NWS storm survey revealed many paved roads that had four to five feet of water running over the roadway. Several other roads still had mud from nearby fields on the roadway which indicates where water was over the roadway.

Video evidence from a storm chaser showed a rain wrapped tornado moving to the northeast approximately 5-7 miles west-northwest of Vigo Park in Swisher County. The NWS survey team did not find any evidence of tornado damage due to the lack of damage indicators.

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

29 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:27 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:00 UTC and running to 02:50 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:41 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), 60 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:56 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

22 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.