EF3 Onalaska tornado, Texas, April 22, 2020

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

April 22, 2020

Touchdown

5:35 PM CDT (22:35 UTC)

Lifted

6:15 PM CDT (23:15 UTC)

On the ground

40 minutes

Path length

28.5 miles (45.9 km)

Path width

1,100 yards (1006 m)

Deaths

3

Injuries

33

Property damage

$5.0 million

County

Polk County

Touchdown point

30.841, -95.182

Lift-off point

30.881, -94.704

Record number

2004221635-01

33 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HGX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 140 mph.

• south edge of track crossing hwy 59
• North edge of track crossing Hwy 59 tv
• Many trees snapped and some debarked.
• Numerous hard and softwood trees uprooted, few snapped.

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

Severe thunderstorms developed in the afternoon and produced large hail, funnel clouds, wind damage and a long-track tornado. The tornado killed 3 people near Onalaska.

Tornado touched down on the eastern shore of Lake Livingston, just NW of Onalaska then moved SE across the town then ESE across Polk County. Some of the most significant damage was in Paradise Acres area of Onalaska. Winds possibly reached 140 mph as the storm moved across this location, which was the only EF3 damage the NWS could confirm along the 30 mile track. The tornado killed three and injured 33 in Onalaska with 291 homes affected and 46 destroyed. It was estimated to be about 500 yards wide as it moved across the town. The tornado continued a general east-|northeastward track across rural Polk county where it snapped and uprooted numerous hardwood and softwood trees and intermittently damaged structures. The tornado path was measured at just over a half-mile wide as it crossed Highway 59 near Seven Oaks, where EF2 damage was surveyed with destruction of two mobile homes and |damage to hardwood trees. The tornado remained in rural areas until it ended very close to Barnes in northeast Polk county. Near the end of the track, a large tree destroyed a mobile home and miraculously just missed a man who was sitting at his computer. He was not seriously injured. For historical context, this was the deadliest single tornado for the NWS Houston-Galveston forecast area since Nov 15th, 1987 when a tornado also killed three in Madison County. The deadliest tornado on record for this area is the F4 in Galveston which killed 8 during Hurricane Carla in 1961. This is only the 8th multiple-fatality tornado for counties served by our office since 1950.

The deaths

3 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.

29 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:06 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:01 UTC and running to 02:52 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:37 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 Houston radar (KHGX), 155 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:33 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 2020 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.