EF2 tornado, Alto to Pinehill, Texas, March 21, 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 21, 2022

Touchdown

11:16 PM CDT (04:16 UTC)

Lifted

12:08 AM CDT (05:08 UTC)

On the ground

52 minutes

Path length

37.1 miles (59.7 km)

Path width

1,400 yards (1280 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$1.8 million

Counties

Cherokee, Nacogdoches and Rusk counties

Touchdown point

31.659, -95.031

Lift-off point

32.075, -94.641

Record number

2203212216-01

207 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 130 mph.

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

A closed upper low emerged out of the Rockies and into the Central Plains during the afternoon and evening hours of March 21st, with the attendant upper trough swinging east through Central Texas and Oklahoma. Strong southerly low level winds allowed for the rapid return of warm, moist, and unstable north behind a warm front which lifted north through East Texas and North Louisiana. Large scale forcing began to increase across Northern and Central Texas during the evening, with showers and thunderstorms becoming numerous across this area which spread into East Texas and North Louisiana during the late evening through the early morning hours of the 22nd. Given the extent of forcing within the unstable air mass in place, severe thunderstorms developed over North-central Texas and spread into East Texas, resulting in numerous reports of damaging winds, large hail, and even isolated tornadoes. Redevelopment of these storms continued overnight as well over the same areas of East Texas and Northwest Louisiana, which resulted in instances of flash flooding as well, as widespread rainfall amounts of 3-6 inches fell over these areas. These storms diminished during the early morning hours of the 22nd with the passage of a cold front through the region.

An EF-2 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 125 mph touched down in a field just north of Highway 21 in Southern Cherokee County a couple miles east-northeast of Alto, where it downed large limbs in a convergent pattern. As the tornado crossed Highway 241, it uprooted trees, and damaged two metal outbuildings just off of County Road 2525. The tornado continued to uproot and snap trees in more rural areas unreachable by vehicles, before crossing over into Northwest Nacogdoches County. The damage across Southern Cherokee County was consistent with EF-1 tornado winds up to 100 mph, although the tornado strengthened to an EF-2 shortly after crossing over into Northwest Nacogdoches County.

This is a continuation of the Southern Cherokee County tornado. This tornado intensified to EF-2 with estimated maximum winds around 125 mph near the intersection of County Roads 885 and 886, where the damage width broadened to near a half mile with widespread snapping of hardwood and softwood trees. The tornado maintained its intensity as it tore through the Lilbert community and approached the west side of Cushing. Widespread trees were snapped on the west side of Cushing, with single family homes sustaining partial to complete loss of their roofs. Estimated maximum winds from this tornado reached 125 mph given the total loss of roofs of single family homes on the west and north side of Cushing, as well as the collapse of exterior walls on a home off of FM 225 and County Road 967. It was estimated that approximately 30 homes were damaged in Cushing, with a total of approximately 50 structures damaged. A wooden church off of County Road 967 was completely destroyed. The tornado continued northeast along FM 225 before crossing over into Southern Rusk County. ||One injury was documented from this tornado as it tore through Northwest Nacogdoches County.

This is a continuation of the Northwest Nacogdoches County EF-2 tornado. The tornado maintained its high end EF-1/low end EF-2 intensity as it moved through Southern and Eastern Rusk County, with estimated maximum winds near 125 mph. Upon departing FM 225 just inside the Southern Rusk County line, the tornado tracked northeast and crossed County Roads 3238 and 3227 before reaching Highway 84. Numerous trees were snapped and uprooted along the tornado's path through Highway 84, with the tornado tearing down a large metal electrical transmission tower off of County Road 3206 northeast of the Sulphur Springs community, while also ripping the roof off of a nearby single family home. The tornado continued northeast snapping and uprooting additional trees, while also damaging the roofs off of several homes as it crossed County Road 3167, FM 2496, County Roads 3155 and 3146. As the tornado crossed Highway 259 and County Road 317, it damaged or destroyed several metal buildings, while also destroying a single-wide mobile home. The tornado also destroyed another single-wide mobile home on FM 95 in the Minden community, while also significantly damaging a nearby single family home. The tornado then crossed FM 1798 and County Road 3125, snapping and uprooting additional trees before crossing FM 840. Here, several metal buildings were destroyed, with damage to roofs and walls on a couple of homes. The tornado crossed County Road 366 before finally lifting just east of County Road 364 about 10 miles east-southeast of Henderson. ||In Rusk County, around 50 structures were damaged. The total path length of this tornado from Southern Cherokee, Northwest Nacogdoches, and through Southern and Eastern Rusk Counties was 37.57 miles.

An EF-2 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 130 mph, touched down along County Road 3124 in extreme Eastern Rusk County, snapping and uprooting several trees before crossing County Road 3121 into Western Panola County. While the stronger winds were noted in Panola County, maximum winds were estimated to be near 90 mph (low EF-1 strength) in extreme Eastern Rusk County.

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

22 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:54 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 01:10 UTC and running to 06:58 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, 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 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.

Henderson (RFI), 31 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 114 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:17 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

35 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.