EF0 tornado, Cooper to Enloe, Texas, January 10, 2020

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

January 10, 2020

Touchdown

6:15 PM CST (00:15 UTC)

Lifted

6:17 PM CST (00:17 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Delta County

Touchdown point

33.373, -95.702

Lift-off point

33.378, -95.697

Record number

2001101815-01

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

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

A deep upper level trough and a humid and unstable environment resulted in an early severe weather event across North and Central Texas. Severe storms developed in the afternoon hours to the northwest and north of the DFW Metroplex. These storms eventually developed into an expanding squall line. A total of 5 tornadoes occurred with this event along with some damaging wind and smaller-sized hail.

A small supercell thunderstorm moved northeast into Delta County, Texas, spawning a brief tornado on the west side of the City of Cooper. The tornado formed about two blocks south of West Dallas Avenue in west Cooper, destroying a small outbuilding and causing minor roof and tree damage. The tornado moved northeast, crossing Dallas Avenue and pulling the roof and an exterior cinder block wall off of a small commercial building. Exterior siding damage also occurred to a two-story apartment complex nearby. The tornado continued toward the northeast, seriously damaging a large sheet metal cotton gin building. Minor tree and structural damage continued for approximately another 200 yards before the tornado dissipated south of State Highway 24. This tornado was rated an EF-0 with maximum winds of 85 mph.

The same supercell that produced the earlier Cooper tornado moved northeast about 4 miles and spawned a second very brief tornado near Enloe, in northern Delta County. The tornado touched down in an open field just southeast of Enloe, destroying a couple of small outbuildings and scattering the debris downwind a few hundred yards. The debris pattern exhibited a subtle cyclonic orientation, implying a brief, weak tornado. The tornado was rated an EF-0 with maximum winds of 75 mph.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:04 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:20 UTC and running to 04:35 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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 Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 174 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:12 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

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.