EF1 tornado, Bowie, Texas, May 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 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

May 22, 2020

Touchdown

9:10 PM CDT (02:10 UTC)

Lifted

9:12 PM CDT (02:12 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.2 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Montague County

Touchdown point

33.552, -97.867

Lift-off point

33.561, -97.848

Record number

2005222010-01

May 22nd - 24th, 2020 was an active few days with two main time frames of severe weather, and scattered severe weather reports punctuated elsewhere within these few days. The highlight of this period was damaging straight-line winds across Montague, Cooke and Grayson Counties with an EF-1 tornado in Bowie (Montague County) on May 22nd. These storms formed along an outflow boundary and front combined across our northwestern counties. The second significant round of convection was scattered diurnal storms on the 24th that produced a few instances of large hail. This second event occurred ahead of an upper level trough that set the stage for severe weather in the state.

Within a larger swath of damaging thunderstorms winds in Bowie, subtle evidence of a tornado was discovered. Beginning near the Best Western Hotel near Highway 59 and US 287, the orientation of damage suggested weak convergence. The intensity of the damage also suggested higher wind speeds on the order of 90 to 95 mph. Similar indicators were noted from this area northeast along a mile-long path into the central business district of Bowie, where substantial roof damage and wall damage occurred to single story and multi-story buildings. This damage was suggestive of estimated tornado wind speeds topping out around 95 mph.

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

43 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:27 UTC, 43 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 00:07 UTC and running to 08:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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), 121 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:08 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

13 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.