EF2 tornado, Malakoff to Athens, Texas, November 4, 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

November 4, 2022

Touchdown

5:35 PM CDT (22:35 UTC)

Lifted

5:58 PM CDT (22:58 UTC)

On the ground

23 minutes

Path length

15.1 miles (24.2 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$3.0 million

County

Henderson County

Touchdown point

32.108, -96.004

Lift-off point

32.244, -95.805

Record number

2211041635-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 99 mph.

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

A fast-moving cold front served as a focus for thunderstorm development across North and Central Texas, as an upper level storm system swept across the Plains the afternoon of November 4. Large hail and damaging wind gusts accompanied several of these storms, and a total of 5 tornadoes occurred. The hardest-hit area was Lamar County, where an EF-4 tornado occurred.

The tornado first touched down around 5:35 PM south of Malakoff, hitting a private family property and wedding venue just west of CR 3441. The tornado continued to move northeast and damaged another family home on CR 1208. The tornado made a continuous path northeast, marked by damage to trees and outbuildings. The tornado moved through Athens, damaging additional structures and uprooting/snapping trees. A Dollar General had its windows blown out. The tornado moved over the Athens Steel Building Corporation, causing the most significant damage of the tornado track. Damage included collapse of the southern portion of the structure. The tornado exited the city and dissipated after damaging structures and trees in the Trey Meadows neighborhood, southwest of Murchison around 5:58 PM. Maximum estimated winds were 115 mph.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:29 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:03 UTC and running to 01:00 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 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 19:36 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.

The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 139 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:36 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

29 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.