EF2 tornado, Hamby to Acampo, Texas, March 19, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 19, 2020

Touchdown

1:43 AM CDT (06:43 UTC)

Lifted

1:50 AM CDT (06:50 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

5.4 miles (8.7 km)

Path width

135 yards (123 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Jones and Shackelford counties

Touchdown point

32.533, -99.674

Lift-off point

32.580, -99.600

Record number

2003190043-01

29 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SJT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

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

A cold front interacting with an upper level disturbance and plenty of moisture triggered a supercell just northwest of Throckmorton on March 17. Stormchasers videtoped a brief tornado touchdown just northwest of Throckmorton. ||By the afternoon of March 18 into the early morning hours of March 19, a strong upper level low pressure system moved northeast across the Panhandle. Plenty of wind shear and instability interacted with a dryline, copious gulf moisture and triggered an isolated discrete supercell. This tornadic supercell produced at least three tornadoes from southeast Nolan County to Taylor, Jones and Shackelford Counties. Two of the tornadoes were EF-2 at times and did extension damage along its track across four counties.

This tornado damaged the Robertson and Middleton Maximum Security Units near Hamby. It damaged or destroyed about 100 vehicles in the parking lot and it tossed or rolled one of them about 300 yards into a nearby lake. It also destroyed a garage of a nearby home and removed the metal roof. The tornado removed some A/C units from the roof of the Units and tore up some fencing. The tornado damaged the guard's house near the entrance to the units. The tornado continued on a northeast track into Shackelford County.

This tornado began just inside Jones County northeast of Abilene and crossed into southwest Shackelford County. There was a report of debris deposited along the Jones and Shackelford County lines. Radar also showed a debris ball signature in this area.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS SJT issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:17 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 04:37 UTC and running to 10:00 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:49 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.

Abilene (ABI), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Dyess AFB radar (KDYX), 36 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:43 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

11 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.