Unrated tornado, Seth Ward, Texas, March 13, 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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

March 13, 2021

Touchdown

4:46 PM CST (22:46 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hale County

Touchdown point

34.233, -101.488

Lift-off point

34.233, -101.488

Record number

2103131646-01

An intense upper level low slowly moving east near the four corners region Saturday afternoon resulted in an outbreak of tornadic thunderstorms across the Panhandle and South Plains of West Texas. An upper level jet streak rotating around the upper low enhanced large scale lift across the region by the afternoon hours. Surface cyclogenesis in the Texas Panhandle drew the surface warm sector northward. Initial thunderstorm development occurred along a dryline located roughly along the US Highway 385 corridor. Storms quickly became severe as they moved into a very unstable airmass characterized by mixed layer CAPEs of 1500-2000 J/kg. Very strong effective layer shear and low level helicities were conducive to produce tornadic supercells. A NWS storm survey reviewed three tornado paths from the 13th. The largest and longest duration tornado developed to the west-southwest of the town of Happy (Swisher County) and had a maximum damage rating of EF-1. This tornado extended well into the Texas Panhandle where it caused EF-2 damaged as determined by a survey by the NWS Weather Forecast Office in Amarillo. Another tornado north of Hart passed near a Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet recording a wind gust to 87 mph. A total of eight tornados were observed this day with three given EF ratings. The remaining five tornadoes were given ratings of EF-Unknown due to no survey being conducted and no reports of damage.

A storm chaser photographed a brief tornado northwest of the intersection of Farm to Market Road 2286 and County Road 77.

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

18 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:28 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:26 UTC and running to 03:00 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:40 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.

Plainview (PVW), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:45 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

20 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.