EF1 tornado, Blue Ridge, Texas, April 4, 2022

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 mphthis tornado

   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. 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

EF1

Date

April 4, 2022

Touchdown

9:32 PM CDT (02:32 UTC)

Lifted

9:36 PM CDT (02:36 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

188 yards (172 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Collin County

Touchdown point

33.298, -96.405

Lift-off point

33.299, -96.400

Record number

2204042032-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 79 mph.

• Tree branches snapped in this area, shingles missing

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

Thunderstorms developed along a slow moving cold front on the evening of Monday, April 4, aided by the arrival of an upper level disturbance. All modes of severe weather were produced across parts of primarily North Texas. This event generated 6 tornadoes, 4 of which were in Johnson County. The strongest tornado was an EF-2. Additional swaths of damaging downburst winds were documented in Kaufman and Van Zandt counties.

The tornado began on the west side of Blue Ridge in Collin County, just south of FM 545 and east of S Church Street where two small workshops/farm outbuildings sustained damage including loss of a large section of the metal roof. As the tornado moved northeast it left behind a path of damage running roughly along and just north of FM 545. Additional damage was found on N Church Street where the wood roof panels were removed from one small barn, and the walls collapsed on another nearby metal outbuilding. In addition to roof damage to multiple area homes and structures, a single-family home near FM 545 and N Morrow Street had substantial damage to the roof and roof deck. As the tornado continued east-northeast it caused damage to the metal roof canopy of the car wash on the corner of S Main St and FM 545. The tornado then crossed N Business Highway 78 damaging a few trees before the circulation is believed to have lifted. Maximum estimated winds were 100 mph.

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 tornado watch, issued at 00:24 UTC and running to 04:37 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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 Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 117 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:33 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 2022 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.