EF0 tornado, Rusk to Reklaw, Texas, June 8, 2021

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

June 8, 2021

Touchdown

10:23 AM CDT (15:23 UTC)

Lifted

10:24 AM CDT (15:24 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Cherokee County

Touchdown point

31.868, -94.990

Lift-off point

31.868, -94.989

Record number

2106080923-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, 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.

Another shortwave trough ejected east across the Ark-La-Tex from the morning through the afternoon hours on June 8th, beneath an upper low pressure system that lifted north from Eastern Oklahoma and Western Arkansas into Southeast Kansas and Western Missouri. Showers and thunderstorms redeveloped during the pre-dawn hours across Southeast Oklahoma and adjacent sections of Southwest Arkansas along a remnant surface boundary from earlier storms ahead of this next approaching trough, moving over already saturated grounds from heavy rainfall that fell a day prior across these areas. A warm, very moist, and unstable air mass was in place, with these storms very efficient rain producers, moving repeatedly over the same areas across Western and Central McCurtain County Oklahoma. Widespread rainfall amounts of 3-8 inches fell across this area, resulting in significant flash flooding. ||Additional scattered severe thunderstorms developed later in the morning farther south across East Texas, which resulted in downed trees and even a few weak, short-lived tornadoes. These storms progressed into North Louisiana around midday, downing additional trees before exiting the region by mid-afternoon.

An EF-0 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 70 mph briefly touched down as it was crossing Highway 84 northeast of Rusk. The tornado broke small limbs on a couple of hardwood and softwood trees and also left two power poles leaning before lifting near the intersection of Highway 84 and Highway 110.

An EF-0 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 80 mph briefly touched down at the Ramey Plant Farm. It collapsed the metal lining structure of two greenhouses before breaking several large branches on a mature hardwood tree. The tornado lifted as it crossed Highway 204. At the Reklaw City Hall, intense ear pressure was experienced by one of the city workers as the tornado passed nearby.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:12 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 15:31 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:53 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.

Jacksonville (JSO), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:20 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

9 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.