Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2022
EF0 tornado, Snook to Chance, Texas, March 21, 2022
From Snook to Chance, this EF0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Burleson County on March 21, 2022, touching down at 8:40 PM CDT and reaching 175 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
- March 21, 2022
- Touchdown
- 8:40 PM CDT (01:40 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:41 PM CDT (01:41 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.3 miles (0.5 km)
- Path width
- 175 yards (160 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Burleson County
- Touchdown point
- 30.542, -96.439
- Lift-off point
- 30.546, -96.436
- Record number
- 2203211940-01
The damage survey
10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HGX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.
- Play house picked up and moved.
- Aluminum structure around trees.
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
Discrete supercell thunderstorms developed ahead of an advancing cold front on the night of March 20, producing strong wind gusts, hail, and tornadoes. Later, a squall line formed along the front itself as it moved through SE TX, resulting in additional straight line wind and tornado damage across the area.
There was an EF0 tornado in Snook that caused damage to a garage door and also some roof damage to a couple homes and to an apartment complex.
An EF0 tornado that occurred at an aquatic facility destroyed a small aluminum shed and also downed powerlines and a few trees.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
31 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:09 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:51 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:15 UTC and running to 05:59 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16:00 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Wind Advisory | HGX |
| 20:15 UTC | 05:59 UTC | Tornado Watch | HGX |
| 00:26 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | HGX |
| 00:39 UTC | 01:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | HGX |
| 01:09 UTC | 01:51 UTC | Tornado Warning | HGX |
| 06:00 UTC | 10:01 UTC | Tornado Watch | HGX |
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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:52 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.
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 12:00Z
10.3 hours after it, 267 km from the path. March 22, 2022.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -6400 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1112 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 93 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 7 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 105 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 160 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.2 K/km
The radar
The Ft Hood radar (KGRK), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:38 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:07 UTC | TORNADO | Lexington | Lee, TX | REPORT OF A TORNADO ON THE GROUND WEST OF LEXINGTON. |
| 01:33 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Ne Snook | Burleson, TX | TORNADO REPORTED NEAR SNOOK BY EMERGENCY MANAGER. |
| 01:33 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Nne Snook | Burleson, TX | TORNADO REPORTED NEAR SNOOK AT HIGHWAY 50 AT HIGHWAY 60 BY EMERGENCY MANAGER. |
| 01:53 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Wnw Up429 | Brazos, TX | PUBLIC REPORTS OF 1-INCH TREE LIMBS BROKEN; SHINGLES BLOWN OFF BUILDINGS. MPING REPORT. |
| 01:59 UTC | TORNADO | 7 Ese Wixon Valley | Brazos, TX | DAMAGE TO A HOME ON SAXON ROAD IN BRAZOS COUNTY SOUTH OF KURTEN. LARGE TREE SNAPPED. |
| 02:09 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Wsw Iola | Burleson, TX | STORM CHASER RECORDED FOOTAGE OF A TORNADO NEAR IOLA. |
| 02:09 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Wsw Iola | Grimes, TX | CORRECTS PREVIOUS TORNADO REPORT FROM 3 WSW SNOOK. STORM CHASER RECORDED FOOTAGE OF A TORNADO NEAR IOLA. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 21, 2022
35 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 21 | 3:12 PM CDT | EF1 | Palo Pinto, TX | 9.7 | 400 | $75,000 | ||
| March 21 | 3:35 PM CDT | EF3 | Jacksboro tornado, TX | 34.5 | 880 | 9 | ||
| March 21 | 4:31 PM CDT | EF1 | Montague, TX | 2.1 | 150 | |||
| March 21 | 4:34 PM CDT | EF1 | Montague, TX | 5.2 | 440 | 3 | ||
| March 21 | 4:47 PM CDT | EF0 | Wise, TX | 6.1 | 150 | |||
| March 21 | 4:54 PM CDT | EF1 | Montague, TX | 18.7 | 500 | |||
| March 21 | 5:17 PM CDT | EF0 | Love, OK | 6.8 | 50 | $20,000 | ||
| March 21 | 5:17 PM CDT | EF1 | Cooke, TX | 18.3 | 150 | |||
| March 21 | 5:31 PM CDT | EF0 | Tarrant, TX | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| March 21 | 5:37 PM CDT | EF0 | Tarrant, TX | 1.3 | 50 | |||
| March 21 | 5:48 PM CDT | EF2 | Guadalupe, TX | 7.9 | 600 | |||
| March 21 | 5:51 PM CDT | EF1 | Williamson, TX | 9.3 | 300 | |||
| March 21 | 5:54 PM CDT | EF2 | Travis, TX | 34.6 | 600 | $2,000 | ||
| March 21 | 6:11 PM CDT | EF2 | Marshall, TX to OK | 5.1 | 200 | 1 | 11 | $500,000 |
| March 21 | 6:12 PM CDT | EF0 | Tarrant, TX | 0.6 | 100 | $20,000 | ||
| March 21 | 6:29 PM CDT | EF1 | Marshall, OK | 10.1 | 200 | $500,000 | ||
| March 21 | 6:30 PM CDT | EF2 | Bastrop, TX | 12.0 | 500 | |||
| March 21 | 6:31 PM CDT | EF0 | Denton, TX | 1.9 | 50 | $20,000 | ||
| March 21 | 6:32 PM CDT | EF0 | Marshall, OK | 2.6 | 20 | |||
| March 21 | 6:43 PM CDT | EF1 | Johnston, OK | 7.1 | 200 | $100,000 | ||
| March 21 | 6:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Bastrop, TX | 5.5 | 50 | |||
| March 21 | 7:14 PM CDT | EF1 | Milam, TX | 3.8 | 200 | $30,000 | ||
| March 21 | 7:25 PM CDT | EF0 | Falls, TX | 0.4 | 30 | $1,000 | ||
| March 21 | 7:28 PM CDT | EF1 | Lee, TX | 2.5 | 50 | |||
| March 21 | 8:08 PM CDT | EF0 | Limestone, TX | 11.8 | 100 | $200,000 | ||
| March 21 | 8:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Burleson, TX | 1.0 | 50 | $100,000 | ||
| March 21 | 9:05 PM CDT | EF1 | Brazos, TX | 0.4 | 175 | $100,000 | ||
| March 21 | 9:35 PM CDT | EF1 | Madison, TX | 2.4 | 200 | $1.0 million | ||
| March 21 | 10:10 PM CDT | EF2 | Houston, TX | 19.1 | 200 | 1 | 10 | $5.0 million |
| March 21 | 10:20 PM CDT | EF2 | Upshur, TX | 40.0 | 700 | 8 | $2.6 million | |
| March 21 | 11:16 PM CDT | EF2 | Cherokee, TX | 37.1 | 1,400 | 1 | $1.8 million | |
| March 21 | 11:21 PM CDT | EF1 | Cass, TX | 1.8 | 150 | |||
| March 21 | 11:29 PM CDT | EF1 | Cass, TX | 2.0 | 200 | $100,000 | ||
| March 21 | 12:08 AM CDT | EF2 | Rusk, TX | 11.9 | 500 | 1 | $550,000 | |
| March 21 | 12:49 AM CDT | EF1 | Harrison, TX | 6.6 | 200 |
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.