Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2021
EF0 tornado, Crossroads to Lorraine, Texas, November 11, 2021
From Crossroads to Lorraine, this EF0 tornado ran 2.6 miles across Harrison County on November 11, 2021, touching down at 12:51 AM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- November 11, 2021
- Touchdown
- 12:51 AM CST (06:51 UTC)
- Lifted
- 12:53 AM CST (06:53 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 2.6 miles (4.2 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Harrison County
- Touchdown point
- 32.402, -94.106
- Lift-off point
- 32.399, -94.061
- Record number
- 2111110051-01
The damage survey
20 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 104 mph.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A longwave trough dug into the Southern Plains from the Central and Southern Rockies during the evening through the early morning hours of November 10th-11th, which reinforced a cold front southeast into these areas. A strong low level jet ahead of the front and attendant trough allowed for moisture to deepen across much of Texas and Oklahoma, with increasing large scale forcing contributing to the development of numerous showers and thunderstorms over these areas during the evening of the 10th, which organized into a squall line as it pushed east of the I-35 corridor into the Four State Region. These storms weakened as they entered the area, but re-intensified over portions of extreme Eastern Texas and Northwest Louisiana during the early morning hours of the 11th, producing several reports of wind damage which downed trees and power lines. This squall line also produced two brief tornadoes over Southern Harrison County Texas and another two brief tornadoes over Northwest Louisiana, before weakening as they moved east into North-Central Louisiana.
A weak EF-0 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 70 mph touched down briefly just southwest of Highway 31 along Mercer Road, and tracked east to Woodley Road in south central Harrison County. Only minor tree damage was observed. The damage was coincident with the beginning of a radar tornadic debris signature. This signature persisted for several miles downstream of this damage, but the survey team determined that lofted leaf debris likely caused the signal to persist much longer than there was observed damage on the ground.
An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 95 mph touched down near Farm Road 9 in far southeastern Harrison County and tracked for roughly 2.5 miles while producing only tree damage along Candyman Road, then lifting approximately one mile before the Texas/Louisiana state line along Boggy Road. The highest degree of tree damage was at the start of the track where a cluster of hardwood trees had either large branches or trunks snapped. This damage was coincident with another radar tornadic debris signature and this signature persisted for several miles downstream of this damage, likely due to lofted leaf debris.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
1 minute of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:50 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:02 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06:50 UTC | 07:02 UTC | Tornado Warning | SHV |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:27 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 air that afternoon
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.
Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 00:00Z
6.9 hours before the tornado, 32 km from the path. November 11, 2021.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 158 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -89 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 232 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 968 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 41 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 198 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 302 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.1
- Supercell composite
- 0.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.0 K/km
Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 12:00Z
5.1 hours after it, 32 km from the path. November 11, 2021.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -69246 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 648 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 51 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 14 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 1 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.0 K/km
The radar
The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 23 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:53 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:40 UTC | TORNADO | 9 S Scottsville | Harrison, TX | A BRIEF EF0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN IN RURAL SOUTH CENTRAL HARRISON COUNTY DOING ONLY MINOR TREE DAMAGE JUST SOUTHWEST OF HIGHWAY 31. THERE WAS AN ASSOCIATED TORNADIC DEBRIS SIGNATURE ON RADAR. THE TORNADO HAD MAX WINDS OF |
| 06:51 UTC | TORNADO | 6 Ssw Waskom | Harrison, TX | A LOW END EF1 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN IN RURAL SOUTHEASTERN HARRISON COUNTY DOING ONLY TREE DAMAGE FROM FARM ROAD 9 EAST TO JUST BEFORE THE STATE LINE. THERE WAS AN ASSOCIATED TORNADIC DEBRIS SIGNATURE ON RADAR. THE TORNADO |
| 06:51 UTC | TORNADO | 6 Ssw Waskom | Harrison, TX | CORRECTS PREVIOUS TORNADO REPORT FROM 6 SSW WASKOM. A LOW END EF1 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN IN RURAL SOUTHEASTERN HARRISON COUNTY DOING ONLY TREE DAMAGE FROM FARM ROAD 9 EAST TO JUST BEFORE THE STATE LINE. THERE WAS AN ASSOCI |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2021 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of November 11, 2021
4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 11 | 12:40 AM CST | EF0 | Harrison, TX | 0.6 | 50 | $1,000 | ||
| November 11 | 1:02 AM CST | EF1 | Caddo Parish, LA | 0.2 | 100 | $90,000 | ||
| November 11 | 2:06 AM CST | EF0 | Bienville Parish, LA | 1.2 | 40 | $5,000 | ||
| November 11 | 3:03 PM CST | EF0 | Elmore, AL | 0.4 | 270 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.