EF2 tornado, Sulphur Spgs to Front, Texas, March 27, 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 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 27, 2021

Touchdown

6:58 PM CDT (23:58 UTC)

Lifted

7:31 PM CDT (00:31 UTC)

On the ground

33 minutes

Path length

22.3 miles (35.9 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$260,000

Counties

Rusk and Panola counties

Touchdown point

31.901, -94.714

Lift-off point

32.067, -94.388

Record number

2103271758-01

14 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

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

A longwave trough shifted east out of the Rockies and into the Central and Southern Plains during the day on March 27th, with the southwest flow ahead of the trough ejecting a series of upper level disturbances northeast across Northeast Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and Northwest Louisiana during the afternoon and evening. Meanwhile, a broad warm and moist sector had spread north across all of the Ark-La-Tex into Eastern Oklahoma and much of Arkansas ahead of this trough, with temperatures warming into the upper 70s and lower 80s areawide. This resulted in moderate instability developing as large scale forcing increased during the late afternoon through the evening hours, resulting in scattered to numerous shower and thunderstorm development across much of these areas. Increasing wind shear late in the afternoon also promoted the development of scattered severe thunderstorms over East Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and Northwest Louisiana, with various reports of damaging winds and large hail received. However, one lone supercell developed over Eastern Anderson County Texas, which produced multiple tornadoes along its track from Cherokee County northeast into Northwest Nacogdoches, Southern Rusk, and Southern Panola Counties, before eventually moving into Northern Desoto and Southeast Caddo Parishes in Northwest Louisiana. These storms eventually organized along a broken line as it pushed into North Louisiana, ahead of a cold front that shifted southeast into the area during the early morning hours of the 28th.

An EF1 tornado with estimated maximum winds around 110 mph touched down about 1 mile west of Mount Enterprise where it uprooted trees in an open field southwest of town. The tornado then tracked northeast into the Mount Enterprise where it caused shingle damage on several single family homes. One home had its roof mostly removed near the intersection of Highway 84 and West 5th Street, while also damaging a church steeple as it crossed Highway 84. Multiple trees were snapped and uprooted and additional homes suffered shingle damage as the tornado tore through the northeast side of Mount Enterprise. The tornado continued northeast as it crossed County Roads 3195 and 3185, before moving into a heavily wooded area east of County Road 3122 in extreme Southeast Rusk County, snapping and uprooting numerous trees, before crossing over into Southwest Panola County and intensifying into an EF2 tornado just southwest of Lake Murvaul.

This is a continuation of the Southern Rusk County tornado. This tornado continued northeast towards Lake Murvaul, where it maintained EF1 intensity while snapping and uprooting numerous trees as it paralleled FM 1971. Upon reaching the lake, the tornado reached several residences along the shoreline where it increased in intensity as it snapped and uprooted more trees and damaged the shingles of many homes. By this time, the tornado had strengthened to an EF2, with estimated maximum winds of 115 mph. One person was injured at their residence on the shore of Lake Murvaul, while video of the tornado was recorded by a storm chaser as it crossed the lake. After downing trees which damaged several structures on the east shore of the lake, it weakened and produced more sporadic damage before lifting north-northwest of Gary City. A review of video, TDEM ground survey data, and Sentinel satellite data indicate that the tornado lifted for approximately 5 miles before it touched down again in Southern Panola County.

An EF2 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 125 mph touched down again from the same supercell thunderstorm that produced the tornado near and over Lake Murvaul in Southwest Panola County, with this tornado downing and uprooting about 10 hardwood and softwood trees along Highway 59 several miles south of Carthage. The tornado intensified as it tracked parallel to FM 2517 and ripped the roof off of a single family home. The tornado's damage path widened considerably as it moved between FM 2517 and County Road 405. Security footage from a local meat processing center in the Antioch community indicates that a multiple-vortex tornado developed as the storm continued and produced a wide swath of snapped trees north and south of FM 2517. ||Along County Road 405, the multiple-vortex tornado continued to completely destroy 3 metal outbuildings and shift another single family home off of its foundation. At this same location, the tornado tossed an antique vehicle 50 yards and wrapped sheet metal around approximately 10 trees. The tornado continued to snap large softwood trees along County Road 407, and as it crossed FM 699, it caused major roof damage to a brick home near the intersection of County Road 407 and County Road 408. A single-wide manufactured home utilizing a pan anchorage system was pulled free from the anchors and destroyed, with some of the debris blown a couple of hundred yards into a field to the east. ||Hundreds of trees were downed in an area along County Road 448. As the tornado crossed FM 31, a large outbuilding was destroyed, but portions of the wooden frame were anchored by bolts to the foundation and remained in place. In this same area, a large pine tree was uprooted and fell onto a single-wide manufactured home, killing a 46 year old woman with her husband suffering a head injury. Another tree fell onto a vehicle nearby and injured two additional people. The tornado continued northeast snapping and uprooting additional trees and it travelled north of FM 2517. It crossed County Road 470, County Road 471, and finally lifted just east of County Road 332.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

31 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:27 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:25 UTC and running to 06:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:54 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

18 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.