Unrated tornado, Seminole Arpt, Texas, June 2, 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

June 2, 2023

Touchdown

1:29 PM CDT (18:29 UTC)

Lifted

1:30 PM CDT (18:30 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Gaines County

Touchdown point

32.666, -102.996

Lift-off point

32.666, -102.992

Record number

2306021229-02

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MAF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 83 mph.

• Irrigation system turned over. No obvious signs of rotation.
• Chose low end of damage indicator as nearby poles unaffected. Wind may have been even less. Extra weight of transformers likely contributor. Nearby power lines and irrigation systems unaffected.
• Unanchored shed and grill tipped over. Shed was found leaning against a mobile home. Wind may not have made severe threshold.
• Video from storm chasers shows brief tornado under 30 seconds before lifting. Survey team found no damage so tornado rating is EF-Unknown. Time and location estimated based on radar and chaser video.

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

A large closed upper-low was located over the northern Great Plains with a shortwave trough to the south within the sub-tropical jet stream. These features helped bring rich moisture and instability into the region. Widespread strong to severe thunderstorms developed across much of the region. The Permian Basin and the Stockton Plateau were the two main areas of note. Severe winds, large hail. and a brief tornado was observed in this northern complex. To the south, several long-track, cyclic supercells produced tornadoes and very large hail over rural portions of Pecos and Terrell Counties.

There was no apparent damage from the reported tornado in the location supplied by storm chasers and estimated by radar data. Video evidence from storm chasers shows the tornado lasted only 29 seconds before lifting in a rural area with limited damage indicators. No damage was found, this tornado has been rated EF-Unknown and the time and location of this tornado was estimated by radar data. Path length and width are also estimated.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS MAF issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:23 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:57 UTC and running to 00:10 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 15:56 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.

Hobbs/Lea Co. (HOB), 21 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:29 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

7 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.