EF1 tornado, Whitt to Poolville, Texas, March 24, 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

March 24, 2023

Touchdown

4:52 AM CDT (09:52 UTC)

Lifted

4:58 AM CDT (09:58 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

6.7 miles (10.8 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

County

Parker County

Touchdown point

32.947, -98.036

Lift-off point

32.990, -97.934

Record number

2303240352-01

An upper level disturbance kicked off a round of nocturnal thunderstorms during the overnight hours of Thursday March 23 into Friday March 24. Storms were focused along both a dryline as it entered from the west, and a cold front as it entered from the northwest. Severe storms produced damaging winds and hail, and two EF-1 tornadoes occurred that resulted in 3 injuries.||Isolated thunderstorms also occurred within a plume of Pacific moisture on March 27, but these storms remained sub-severe.

The tornado developed on the southwest side of Whitt near Bounty Rd where an untethered large RV trailer was rolled upside down. There were 2 injuries reported with the damage in this area. Tree damage spans from Whitt Cut Off Road to Middleton Road and includes snapped trunks and large broken branches. As the tornado moved northeast towards the Wise County line, it caused damage to the roof of a metal building near Leech Road and rolled another untethered large RV trailer on its side along Lone Star Rd. The tornado appears to have lifted before reaching Advance Rd. Maximum estimated winds were 100 mph.

The tornado developed along Pine Road west of Poolville, where the roof of a single family home sustained damaged. As the tornado tracked northeast, it produced extensive damage to trees across the northwestern side of Poolville including snapped trunks and uprooted trees. Structural damage includes the uplift and overturning of a metal garage structure near the intersection of Pine Road and Lone Star Road, roof and siding damage to a few single family residences, and the complete collapse of a large covered pavilion roof near the Poolville Cemetery. The tornado continued to move north-northeast towards the Wise County line producing additional damage to trees and several outdoor buildings along Clover Drive. Multiple manufactured homes along and just south of Highway 199 were damaged as the tornado crossed the county line, and 3 injuries reported in Wise County with damage in this area. The tornado appears to have lifted as it crossed Highway 199 with isolated damage noted beyond the end of the tornado track.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 04:06 UTC and running to 11:00 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:56 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.

Mineral Wells Municipal (MWL), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 77 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:51 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

19 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.