EF0 tornado, Casa Blanca, Texas, August 22, 2023

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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. 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

EF0

Date

August 22, 2023

Touchdown

11:57 AM CDT (16:57 UTC)

Lifted

12:01 PM CDT (17:01 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1,000

County

Jim Wells County

Touchdown point

28.006, -97.934

Lift-off point

28.006, -97.937

Record number

2308221057-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CRP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

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

Tropical Storm Harold moved west across south Texas on the 22nd. An area of low pressure developed over the central Gulf of Mexico on the 21st. A large area of high pressure over the central United States into the northern Gulf Coast steered the system quickly westward toward the Middle Texas coast. The low strengthened into Tropical Storm Harold by the early morning hours of the 22nd. Harold increased in strength and made landfall south of Baffin Bay as a 50 mph tropical storm during the late morning. Harold moved west-northwest and weakened into a tropical depression as it reached Laredo. Beneficial rains occurred over the Coastal Bend and Brush Country with the heaviest rainfall, ranging from 5 to 7 inches, from Corpus Christi to Alice to north of Freer. Flooding occurred in Corpus Christi and Laredo. Two weak tornadoes occurred south of George West and near Orange Grove. Tides ranged from 1 to 2 feet MHHW along the Middle Texas coast. Tidal flooding occurred around Corpus Christi and Nueces Bays with the highest tide level of 2.6 feet MHHW at Nueces Bay.

An EF-0 tornado with 75 mph winds touched down 3 miles north of Orange Grove. The tornado moved west across Farm to Market Road 738. The tornado snapped a few branches 3 to 4 inches in diameter.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 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.

The Corpus Christi radar (KCRP), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:57 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

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.