EF3 tornado, Cason to Cusseta, 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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

November 4, 2022

Touchdown

6:44 PM CDT (23:44 UTC)

Lifted

7:06 PM CDT (00:06 UTC)

On the ground

22 minutes

Path length

16.9 miles (27.2 km)

Path width

650 yards (594 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

8

Property damage

$5.0 million

Counties

Morris and Cass counties

Touchdown point

33.022, -94.816

Lift-off point

33.206, -94.624

Record number

2211041744-01

97 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 155 mph.

• Heavily damaged portion was being refinished and wall covering not solid
• Seemed to be strapping. Not sure how well it was used.
• Thrown approx 50 feet from the yard of house in background
• Boat was thrown approx 100 feet

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

A strong upper level trough progressed through the Rockies and into the Central and Southern Plains during the day on November 4th, enhancing strong surface low development over the Upper Red River Valley into Oklahoma. This produced a strong pressure gradient over the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley, allowing for very rich Gulf moisture to surge north across the Ark-La-Tex area into Eastern Oklahoma and much of Arkansas. This generated moderate instability across these areas during the afternoon, as temperatures rose into the lower to mid 80s. Very strong wind shear was also in place over these areas, with the upper trough reinforcing a cold front southeast into Southeast Oklahoma, Western Arkansas, and East Texas. This trough enhanced large scale forcing along the front, with discrete supercell development also occurring ahead of the main line of storms over portions of East Texas, Southeast Oklahoma, and Southwest Arkansas. Multiple tornadoes, some strong, touched down across these areas, with additional instances of damaging winds also reported before the line of storms overtook these discrete supercells and shifted east across the remainder of East Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and into North Louisiana during the evening and overnight hours.

The supercell thunderstorm which produced a brief and weak tornado in eastern Camp County then went on to produce a stronger and longer-lasting tornado from southwestern Morris County and into northwestern Cass County. This EF-3 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 155 mph initially started along FM-144 south of the Cason community and very quickly became quite destructive, producing EF-3 damage to a home, and EF-2 damage to multiple structures before tracking northeast to Texas Highway 11. A few mobile homes were destroyed near the start of the tornado which resulted in several injuries. The tornado continued to track northeast from Texas Highway 11 to Highway 49, doing mostly EF-1 damage for 3 miles before reaching Highway 49. As the tornado crossed Highway 49, two nearby homes were completely destroyed and largely swept from their foundations and at least one injury resulted. This damage was only rated EF-2 because of the pier and beam foundation construction of both homes did not anchor the structures well to the intense wind loading. Behind the homes, some isolated tree debarking was observed with a swath of EF-3 damage with maximum winds of 140 mph. The tornado continued to the northeast, completely destroying a mobile home along CR-3201, where one fatality associated with this tornado occurred. The tornado continued to advance northeastward, doing mainly EF-1 damage to trees and some structures before knocking over and destroying a few large electrical transmission lines near the intersection of CR-3211 and CR-3209. EF-2 level winds at 125 mph were estimated to have caused this structural damage. Finally, the tornado continued on another several miles to the northeast across U.S. Highway 259 before crossing into northwestern Cass County.

This is a continuation of an EF-3 tornado that occurred in Morris County and tracked into extreme northwestern Cass County. This tornado produced mainly EF-1 damage with estimated maximum winds near 105 mph to a mix of trees and structures as it crossed CR-2888 and CR-2738, before lifting shortly after crossing Texas Highway 77.

The tornado first touched down just to the southwest of Hughes Springs and then moved northeast into the city limits, where EF-1 damage was noted. Two single family residences sustained damage to the roofs with partial roof removal. The forest station on Pine Street also sustained damage to the roof and walls. Additionally, numerous large trees were downed along the path. Damage continued along CR-2994, just northeast of Hughes Springs, where two well-built homes sustained substantial roof damage consistent with an EF-2 rating. As the tornado continued on its path, it continued to cause EF-1 damage through more rural areas of Cass County, with a consistent path of snapped and uprooted softwood and hardwood trees. The tornado began to intensify near Cusseta, with a tornado debris signature appearing on radar. Here, the tornado caused widespread EF-2 damage to countless hardwood and softwood trees. Trees were snapped and twisted over an extensive area of ground, with the tornado causing EF-1 damage to an old structure located on a small hill. The tornado began to weaken on the north side of Texas Highway 77 west of Douglassville, but not before snapping more hardwood and softwood trees on both sides of the highway. Through the use of high resolution satellite imagery, the track was found to be continuous in areas that originally could not be surveyed by ground.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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 23:22 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:37 UTC and running to 01:59 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:42 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.