Unrated tornado, Smyer, Texas, May 17, 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 17, 2021

Touchdown

7:50 PM CDT (00:50 UTC)

Lifted

7:51 PM CDT (00:51 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hockley County

Touchdown point

33.517, -102.143

Lift-off point

33.518, -102.136

Record number

2105171850-01

A widespread severe thunderstorm event occurred on the afternoon and evening of the 17th. Thunderstorms initially formed along a dryline near the Texas/New Mexico state line and along an outflow boundary from previous day storms. The ample instability was complemented by large scale lift moving overhead from an upper level jet moving into the southern High Plains. Very intense supercells developed across the entirety of the South Plains, Rolling Plains, and extreme southern Texas Panhandle due to the abundant amount of unstable air. Several supercells produced hail up to baseball size as they slowly moved across the region. One particularly robust rotating storm developed over Hockley County and moved eastward into Lubbock County and through the city of Lubbock. This storm developed several funnel clouds and a brief tornado in far eastern Hockley County. The low level circulation moved directly over the southern portion of the city of Lubbock but did not produce any additional tornadoes. Decaying thunderstorms also produced two high wind gusts. These high wind gusts were measured by the Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet at Friona (Parmer County) 64 mph and Lesley (Hall County) 59 mph. Lastly, thunderstorms repeatedly formed over central Bailey County causing flash flooding along Farm to Market Road 746 west of Texas Highway 214.||In the early morning hours of the 18th, stratiform precipitation from decaying thunderstorms produced two high wind gusts. One near Graham of 62 mph and the other near Hackberry (Cottle County) of 59 mph. Both of these reports came from the Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet.

Numerous reports of a funnel cloud and a brief touchdown were received on a supercell just west of Wolfforth. The tornado briefly touched down in an open field in Hockley County just west of the Lubbock/Hockley County line. No damage was known from this tornado, therefore, a rating of EF-Unknown was assigned.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:40 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:14 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:04 UTC and running to 02:29 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 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.

Lubbock International Airport (LBB), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 34 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:47 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

16 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.