Unrated tornado, Sudan to Amherst, Texas, May 16, 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

May 16, 2021

Touchdown

7:40 PM CDT (00:40 UTC)

Lifted

7:43 PM CDT (00:43 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lamb County

Touchdown point

34.112, -102.439

Lift-off point

34.113, -102.422

Record number

2105161840-01

An upper level low in the southwestern US combined with ample instability across West Texas to create numerous severe thunderstorms with one long lived supercell producing a tornado. There were two areas of thunderstorm development late in the afternoon of the 16th. The first was in the extreme southeastern Texas Panhandle along a lingering outflow boundary located from northwest Texas into the central Panhandle near Amarillo. The second area was along a dryline in the western South Plains. The lone thunderstorm that developed along the dryline to survive past sunset became a long lived supercell which tracked from Lamb County into Crosby County over several hours. Shortly after this supercell developed in western Lamb County, it produced a brief tornado between Earth and Amherst photographed by several storm chasers. The tornado remained over open land and did not cause any known damage. This supercell would go on to nearly dissipate while over western Hale County. However, it regenerated over central Hale County and would go on to produce a long hail swath of up to three inch diameter hail from central Hale County to Petersburg (Hale County). Meanwhile, widespread thunderstorms developed in the extreme southern Texas Panhandle into the Rolling Plains on a cold pool that moved south out of the central Texas Panhandle. These thunderstorms would produce sporadic severe wind gusts and severe hail.

Numerous storm chasers photographed a brief tornado in an open field about seven miles south of Earth. No known damaged occurred so a rating of EF-unknown was assigned to this tornado.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 00:10 UTC and running to 03:52 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 19:51 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 Lubbock radar (KLBB), 76 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:38 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

8 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.