EF1 tornado, Ellstone, Texas, April 28, 2021

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

April 28, 2021

Touchdown

7:33 PM CDT (00:33 UTC)

Lifted

7:41 PM CDT (00:41 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

1.8 miles (2.9 km)

Path width

600 yards (549 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Medina County

Touchdown point

29.299, -99.102

Lift-off point

29.297, -99.072

Record number

2104281833-01

38 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS EWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• 2-3 foot high corn stalks blown over.
• Center pivot irrigation toppled.
• It appears that some of the sheet metal in the area came from the site of the mobile home just to the west.
• Most of roof covering gone. Porch roof is throw into fence north of the yard.

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

Thunderstorms developed along a cold front in northern Mexico and moved into South Central Texas. Some of these storms grew to be supercells and produced giant hail, damaging wind gusts, and one tornado. Some areas along Highway 90 had multiple rounds of supercells. Two supercells combined near D'Hanis and Hondo, producing gargantuan hail in excess of 6 inches in diameter. One of the hailstones that fell in Hondo was officially measured at 6.416 inches in diameter and weighed 1.26 pounds. These were deemed new Texas state hail records. There is no official monetary loss due to damage as private insurance companies do not release data to the NWS, but knowing the size of hail and the area affected, it is estimated that millions of dollars of damage occurred.

Within a larger more sporadic wind damage path, a National Weather Service Storm Survey Team found a distinct path of concentrated damage along Elstone Road/CR 446 that they rated an EF-1 tornado. Based on radar and time estimates from locals the tornado began west of Hwy 173 where it peel back the roof of a barn before causing significant damage to a manufactured home and rolled an RV. The tornado crossed Hwy 173 and proceeded east along CR 548 snapping tree trunks along the road before reaching another cluster of manufactured homes. One home was pushed off of its foundation. Another single family home suffered extensive roof damage. The|homeowner provided details of the event and showed additional damage to the property, including a shed anchored with cement footings being demolished and a weighted deer blind being blown over. Damage decreased to the east of these homes with a center pivot irrigation system damaged and more tree damage. The endpoint for the tornado was estimated as Hondo Creek prevented further survey eastward. Maximum winds are estimated to have been 110 mph with an estimated tornado path width of 600 yards.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS EWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:26 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:10 UTC and running to 03:22 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:33 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 Austin/San Antonio radar (KEWX), 112 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:31 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 2021 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.