EF1 tornado, Winona, Texas, August 22, 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

August 22, 2022

Touchdown

10:26 AM CDT (15:26 UTC)

Lifted

10:30 AM CDT (15:30 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.8 miles (6.1 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Smith County

Touchdown point

32.487, -95.192

Lift-off point

32.534, -95.158

Record number

2208220926-01

11 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 100 mph.

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

A large upper low pressure system moved into the Great Lakes region on August 22nd, with a trailing upper trough extending southwest of this low into the Southern Plains. This trough induced surface low development along a weak surface boundary across North Texas, and focused areas of showers and embedded thunderstorms over much of the Four State Region. Weak surface heating near this boundary contributed to modestly unstable conditions within a moist environment in place, with enough low level shear available which resulted in a low topped supercell developing near Winona in Northeast Smith County Texas. This storm produced a brief EF-1 tornado which just missed the Winona Independent School District campus, but still downed numerous trees along its path before lifting.

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 95 mph touched down just south of County Road 345 on the west side of Winona. There, it lofted a small metal outbuilding, throwing it across the road, while also uprooting a tree. It continued on to clip the Winona Independent School District campus, where it lifted a training sled as it crossed the football field and damaged the roof of a dugout. The tornado just missed hitting the school buildings by only around 200 yards. The tornado continued on to hit another small metal outbuilding, rolling and destroying it before crossing FM 16. The tornado then paralleled Hussey Circle, downing several more large branches and snapping a large tree which fell into a home. Additional hardwood trees were uprooted as it crossed County Road 155, where the tornado reached its widest point before lifting shortly thereafter.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:46 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.

Tyler/Pounds Field (TYR), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 125 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:24 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

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.