EF2 tornado, Nolan to Tye, 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

1:00 AM CDT (06:00 UTC)

Lifted

1:13 AM CDT (06:13 UTC)

On the ground

13 minutes

Path length

10.9 miles (17.5 km)

Path width

425 yards (389 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$2.0 million

Counties

Nolan and Taylor counties

Touchdown point

32.310, -100.219

Lift-off point

32.382, -100.053

Record number

2003190000-01

26 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 135 mph.

• Truck was tossed and tractor was overturned.
• Hi Res stlt data shows scoured ground.
• Hi res satllite data showed scoured ground and lots of missing trees in a forest.
• Drone footage showing a wind turbine knocked down by tornado. These are rated at 122 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.

An EF-2 tornado touched down in southeast Nolan County and continued into Taylor County. About 14.5 miles southeast of Sweetwater, drone footage provided by AES Wind Generation Plant showed the EF-2 tornado damaged a large windmill turbine and tore off other windmill blades. The twister also caused roof damage to a residence and knocked down some high powered transmission poles and power lines.

This is the same EF-2 Tornado that began in southeast Nolan County and crossed into southwest Taylor County. About 9.7 miles south of Trent near the Nolan-Taylor County Line, High Resolution Satellite Data showed the tornado destroyed a forest. Radar also showed a Tornado Debris Signature in this part of southwest Taylor County. About 8 miles south southeast of Trent, a NWS damage survey observed snapped large tree trunks, destruction of a large barn, tossed tractors and two vehicles that were also tossed. The resident could see the tornado approaching from his back door. About 8 miles south southeast of Trent, this same tornado snapped large Oak Tree trunks, scoured the ground, shredded a large Cedar Tree trunk, and even removed some bark from some of the trees. It damaged the roof of a nearby home. Hi-Res Satellite also showed the forest destroyed by this tornado. Taylor County Emergency Management assisted with this damage survey.

Power flashes were reported by local law enforcement officials on the south side of Tye. |A NWS Storm Survey verified the tornado mostly impacted the south side of Tye. The tornado took the roof of a manufactured home on the south side of Tye, it damaged playground equipment at Ryster Park, and destroyed a nearby metal carport. This EF-1 tornado touched down briefly. Tye Police assisted with this damage survey.

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

38 minutes of warning. NWS SJT issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:22 UTC, 38 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:00 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 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 Dyess AFB radar (KDYX), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:57 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.