EF1 tornado, Gageby, Texas, June 22, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

June 22, 2023

Touchdown

3:41 PM CDT (20:41 UTC)

Lifted

3:55 PM CDT (20:55 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

10.3 miles (16.6 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$85,000

County

Hemphill County

Touchdown point

35.700, -100.230

Lift-off point

35.650, -100.060

Record number

2306221441-01

16 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS AMA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• A few large branches broken in the front yard
• Several branches broken along Hwy 2124 between county road 27 and 26.
• Large branches snapped. Maybe one closer to the trunk.
• A few new snapped branches. A large old tree was blown toward hwy 277 north and south.

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

Various discrete and scattered thunderstorms impacted portions the combined Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles each evening and overnight on the 21st through the 23rd. Several of these storms produced large hail over and inch in diameter with some as large as 2.75. Severe wind gusts were also hazard with a gust upwards of 66 mph measured by ground equipment. A supercell even dropped a tornado in Hemphill County.

This tornado developed near County Road 17 and produced some minor tree damage, with limbs and branches being blown down. The tornado then continued across open field before impacting a residence just off Highway 277, where it brought down trees and some power lines along that road. As it crossed Highway 277, it brought down about 7 power poles, and caused more impressive tree damage, snapping branches and some trees while uprooting other hardwood trees. It resulted in some minor roof damage to a shed and damaged another shed at a natural gas facility. The tornado then crossed County Road 22, just to the south of Highway 277. Here, it snapped several hardwood branches and uprooted another tree. It also lifted the lids off of two silos, one of which collapsed in on the side. The debris of the lids ended up damaging a nearby barn. The tornado then crossed open fields and Highway 277 once more before causing some minor tree branch damage along Highway 2124. The tornado likely lifted after this point.

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. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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.

Canadian (HHF), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 150 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:41 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.