EF2 tornado, Henderson to Shiloh, Texas, May 5, 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

May 5, 2022

Touchdown

1:45 PM CDT (18:45 UTC)

Lifted

1:59 PM CDT (18:59 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

8.6 miles (13.9 km)

Path width

1,000 yards (914 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$100,000

County

Rusk County

Touchdown point

32.176, -94.740

Lift-off point

32.240, -94.614

Record number

2205051245-01

106 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 115 mph.

• RV trailer thrown and destroyed
• RV canopy thrown roughly 500 feet to the west
• Food truck trailer thrown approximately 50 feet
• Man was injured by falling tree here.

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

A surface low was centered over the southern Texas Panhandle with a stationary front extending through southern Oklahoma into southern Arkansas eastward into northern Mississippi. A dry line extended southward from the surface low through west Texas into the Big Bend Country along with a cold front draped southwest from the surface low into southeast New Mexico. Aloft, an upper-level low was initially centered just east of the Rockies in eastern Colorado before tracking into eastern Kansas and eventually into the Ozarks on the morning of May 6th. Meanwhile, the surface low shifted along the Red River Valley with the cold front trailing along the I-35 corridor, shifting farther east into the Ark-La-Tex region on the afternoon and evening of May 5th. As a result, an ongoing complex of showers and thunderstorms over Oklahoma strengthened as they moved into a more unstable environment during the afternoon ahead of the cold front and upper low, becoming strong to severe across portions of Southwest Arkansas, East Texas, and Northwest Louisiana. These storms also produced a few isolated tornadoes across portions of Rusk and Western Panola Counties, with localized flash flooding observed across portions of Upshur and Panola Counties.

An EF-2 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 115 mph developed just west of County Road 222 on the east side of Henderson and continued northeast for just over eight miles, uprooting and snapping thousands of trees and causing damage to some structures. The tornado was at its widest and strongest crossing County Road 262, FM 1251 East, County Road 324, and County Road 327 where extensive snapping of pine and hardwood trees warranted an estimated peak wind speed of 115 mph, a low EF-2 rating on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The one injury occurred along County Road 262 where a male outside was struck by a falling tree. Several residences received various levels of roof damage, mostly due to falling trees. The tornado weakened as it lifted west of Martin Lake, with the same storm spawning another tornado just to the east near Martin Lake.

This was the second tornado of an east to northeast moving supercell thunderstorm. This EF-1 tornado, with estimated maximum winds of 104 mph, moved over Martin Creek Lake and eventually into western Panola County. Most of the damage consisted of snapped and uprooted trees. The total path length in Rusk County was approximately two miles before entering Western Panola County.

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 110 mph first touched down near Highway 259, causing damage at the Whispering Pines RV Park. This damage consisted of numerous trees being uprooted or snapped along with the complete destruction of a towable RV trailer. In addition, a food truck was tossed around 50 feet along with a number of canopies being tossed up to 500 feet. The tornado tracked to the east northeast and crossed County Road 3145 and uprooted/snapped numerous trees, before crossing FM 95 South toward County Road 3153, leaving behind a trail of uprooted and snapped trees. The tornado lifted near County Road 3144, with a path length of just over 3 miles.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:42 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:14 UTC and running to 23:00 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 16:30 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), 18 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:47 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

5 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.