EF1 tornado, Detroit to Manchester, Texas, May 24, 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

May 24, 2022

Touchdown

3:52 PM CDT (20:52 UTC)

Lifted

4:01 PM CDT (21:01 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

7.4 miles (11.9 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5.0 million

County

Red River County

Touchdown point

33.679, -95.236

Lift-off point

33.769, -95.166

Record number

2205241452-01

23 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 95 mph.

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

A warm front lifting northward throughout the day of May 24th, followed by a strong shortwave trough lifting northeast from south Texas, resulted in isolated strong to severe thunderstorms across northeast Texas during the afternoon. Very warm temperatures and dew points ahead of a cold front resulted in rapidly increasing instability in the broadening warm sector throughout the afternoon and evening hours. A complex of strong to severe thunderstorms farther west across the Texas panhandle region earlier in the day gradually advanced eastward and closely tracked along the middle Red River Valley with the trailing cold front shifting along and east of the I-35 corridor of north and central Texas later in the afternoon and evening. A few severe storms along the front produced damaging wind gusts and an isolated tornado over part of northeast Texas during the afternoon.

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 95 mph touched down northeast of Detroit along County Road 2127 North, where it twisted small and large limbs on a couple of trees. The tornado crossed CR 2140 and 2133, where it snapped and uprooted hardwood trees. The tornado was most evident in this location with the tall grass in a field pushed down and hardwood trees snapped in a convergent pattern. As the tornado crossed CR 2133, it just missed a single wide mobile home, only ripping a few metal panels off of its roof. The tornado continued to mostly twist and down large branches as it crossed CR 2234 and CR 2235, with a few hardwood trees snapped as it crossed CR 2235 before lifting. It is possible that the tornado continued on further beyond CR 2235, but a heavily wooded area prevented further access to the survey team.

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.

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 19:52 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.

Paris/Cox Field (PRX), 25 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 190 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:51 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

1 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.