EF1 tornado, Panola Pedros Arpt to Bethany, Texas, May 8, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

May 8, 2019

Touchdown

3:19 PM CDT (20:19 UTC)

Lifted

3:24 PM CDT (20:24 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$60,000

Counties

Caddo and Panola counties

Touchdown point

32.373, -94.045

Lift-off point

32.376, -94.000

Record number

1905081419-03

41 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• numerous trees snapped and uprooted
• several trees snapped and uprooted
• tree snapped facing towards the SE
• More snapped trunks and trees

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

A strong upper level trough of low pressure extending from the Intermountain West into the Four Corners Region energized the southwest flow aloft across the Southern Plains during much of the day on May 8th, with a strong low level jet sustaining a mesoscale convective complex (MCS) across much of Oklahoma into Northcentral Texas south into the Texas Hill Country. While these storms gradually weakened after daybreak as a cold pool from these storms propagated southeast into the region, additional upper level disturbances ahead of this trough interacted with ample moisture and instability near this cold pool to intensify these showers and thunderstorms, some of which became severe with damaging winds as they moved across portions of East Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and North Louisiana. Strong low level shear was also present within the moderately unstable air mass, with discrete supercell thunderstorms developing across extreme East Texas and North Louisiana. This resulted in several reports of tornadoes, with two separate tracks found across Northern Harrison and extreme Northeast Panola Counties, before the storms moved into North Louisiana by mid-afternoon. Locally heavy rainfall from the stronger storms within a short period of time also resulted in localized flash flooding across portions of Cass County, with flash flooding also reported across Eastern Harrison and Panola Counties during the early morning hours on May 9th as additional showers and thunderstorms redeveloped and moved repeatedly over the same areas. During the evening hours on the 9th, isolated severe thunderstorms developed over portions of Deep East Texas along old outflow boundaries from the storms earlier in the day. These storms produced large hail in extreme Southern Sabine County and Central Nacogdoches County before diminishing by midnight.

A strong upper level trough of low pressure extending from the Intermountain West into the Four Corners Region energized the southwest flow aloft across the Southern Plains during much of the day on May 8th, with a strong low level jet sustaining a mesoscale convective complex (MCS) across much of Oklahoma into Northcentral Texas south into the Texas Hill Country. While these storms gradually weakened after daybreak as a cold pool from these storms propagated southeast into the region, additional upper level disturbances ahead of this trough interacted with ample moisture and instability near this cold pool to intensify these showers and thunderstorms, some of which became severe with damaging winds as they moved across portions of East Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and North Louisiana. Strong low level shear was also present within the moderately unstable air mass, with discrete supercell thunderstorms developing across extreme East Texas and North Louisiana. This resulted in eleven reports of tornadoes across Northern Louisiana before the storms gradually weakened during the evening. However, locally heavy rainfall from the stronger storms persisted across portions of North Louisiana during the evening through the overnight/early morning hours of the 9th.

An EF-1 tornado with maximum estimated winds near 100 mph touched down along Highway 79 in Bethany, Texas in the far northeast section of Panola County, where it snapped and uprooted several trees and removed the roofing of a service station along Highway 79 before crossing over into Caddo Parish in Northwest Louisiana. The estimated winds of the tornado shortly after it touched down in Panola County was near 90 mph before the winds increased as it moved into the Louisiana side of Bethany in Caddo Parish.

This is a continuation of the extreme Northeast Panola County tornado. This EF-1 tornado strengthened as it entered Western Caddo Parish, with maximum estimated winds near 100 mph. It continued east from the Texas/Louisiana state line in the Bethany community along Highway 79, where it uprooted and snapped several trees, before paralleling Buncombe Road. Along this nearly two mile stretch of Buncombe Road, numerous trees were snapped and uprooted before the tornado lifted near the intersection of Cook Road.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:16 UTC and running to 00:20 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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 19 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:18 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

17 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.