Unrated tornado, Dougherty, Texas, April 25, 2023

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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

April 25, 2023

Touchdown

9:17 PM CDT (02:17 UTC)

Lifted

9:20 PM CDT (02:20 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Floyd County

Touchdown point

33.940, -101.140

Lift-off point

33.940, -101.137

Record number

2304252017-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LUB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry.

• Strom chaser photos of tornado via Twitter. Chaser was at the intersection of FM1958 and FM602, looking northeast.

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

The approach of an upper level storm system through the Four Corners, in combination with a gradual return of Gulf of Mexico moisture, a tightening dryline, and lifting warm front triggered scattered thunderstorms on the afternoon and evening of the 25th. The initial thunderstorm development was concentrated across the southwestern Texas Panhandle as well as the western South Plains, in close proximity to the warm front and dryline. The most intense storm of the day evolved from a cluster of thunderstorms over the southwestern Texas Panhandle during the late afternoon hours. Once the storm became organized it began rotating and took a right turn. The southeast track of the supercell brought the thunderstorm across Tulia (Swisher County), just northeast of Floydada (Floyd County), and eventually through McAdoo and Dickens (Dickens County) before finally weakening over far southeast Dickens County late in the evening. During its greater than six hour trek, the supercell thunderstorm was a proficient hail producer, tossing hail as large as baseballs, softballs, and even grapefruit size. The large to giant hail caused significant damage around the region, including Dickens, which took a direct hit. Windows were smashed out of homes and vehicles, while roofs and siding incurred large impact craters. The hail-producing thunderstorm occasionally generated intense straight-line winds too. A Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet site near McAdoo measured a peak wind gust of 90 mph. In addition to generating very large hail and damaging winds, the supercell produced one brief tornado near Dougherty, in a rural area of southeastern Floyd County.

Numerous storm chasers documented a tornado over open land approximately three miles west of Dougherty. An NWS storm survey in the vicinity did not find any definitive indications of damage.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:30 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:47 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.

Plainview (PVW), 59 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 70 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:17 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 2023 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.