EF1 tornado, Kaufman Flying G Arp to Cobbs, Texas, October 20, 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

October 20, 2019

Touchdown

10:39 PM CDT (03:39 UTC)

Lifted

10:41 PM CDT (03:41 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.9 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Kaufman County

Touchdown point

32.671, -96.139

Lift-off point

32.678, -96.138

Record number

1910202139-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

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

Thunderstorms erupted across the DFW Metroplex as a strong upper level system and a cold front impacted the region on the evening of October 20 through the early morning hours of October 21st. A few storms developed ahead of the approaching cold front in the late evening hours of the 20th, producing tornadoes in Dallas and surrounding areas. Additional storms formed a squall line along the cold front, producing a large swath of damaging winds across North and Central Texas overnight into the early hours of October 21st. A total of 10 tornadoes were identified by NWS Survey teams, occurring both within the storms ahead of the cold front, and embedded within the squall line. The strongest of these tornadoes was an EF-3 that stretched almost 16 miles across the northern portions of Dallas County. Following on the heels of that tornado, an EF-2 tracked about 2.5 miles through Garland in Dallas County. The remaining count of tornadoes included 4 EF-1s and 4 EF-0s. Miraculously, no one was killed or significantly injured in any of the tornadoes! The total estimated cost of insured damage for all the tornadoes alone is over $2 billion, which the Insurance Council of Texas claims is the most costly tornado event in the state's history. Of the straight line wind damage, the most severe was located in Farmersville in Collin Co where a mobile home was rolled and destroyed. Three people were injured in the home. Over a dozen other manufactured homes in the same area were damaged, too.

A tornado briefly formed approximately 5 miles north of the City of Kaufman, partially removing a portion of metal roofing from a single-family residence. A large section of this roofing was blown back toward the southwest, into a powerline. A nearby power pole was also partially snapped. The tornado dissipated shortly after impacting this residence.

A tornado formed in open country approximately 3.5 miles SE of Elmo. Moving northeastward, this tornado removed sheet metal from an outbuilding on ranch property. Immediately after crossing Kaufman County Road 314, the tornado intensified, snapping two power poles along CR 314 and impacting a single family residence and adjacent outbuildings. An adjacent metal barn was severely damaged, with the sheet metal roof almost completely removed and steel trusses severely bent. Several large trees on the property were snapped or sustained major trunk damage. A personal weather station on the roof of the home measured a wind gust of 100 mph during the tornado, and damage elsewhere on the property was consistent with 95-105 mph EF-1 intensity windspeeds.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:02 UTC and running to 06:50 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:18 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.

Terrell (TRL), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:40 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

19 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.