EF2 tornado, Liverpool, Texas, December 28, 2024

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

December 28, 2024

Touchdown

12:53 PM CST (18:53 UTC)

Lifted

1:12 PM CST (19:12 UTC)

On the ground

19 minutes

Path length

8.9 miles (14.3 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

5

County

Brazoria County

Touchdown point

29.331, -95.336

Lift-off point

29.386, -95.206

Record number

2412281253-01

41 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HGX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Large tree branches snapped.
• Most of roof gone - 60 or 70%
• Exterior wall collapsed. Significant roof damage.
• Metal garage damaged, with roof and walls torn up.

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

Multiple tornadic storms occurred during the afternoon on the 28th, producing hail, wind and tornadoes.

An emergency manager relayed the first report of tornado damage in the area, reporting multiple homes damaged or destroyed between Alvin and Liverpool. ||The survey team found that the tornado tracked along Co Road 172 in rural Brazoria County into Hillcrest. EF-0 and EF-1 damage was observed along most of the tornado's track. The most significant damage occurred at Walt Disney Elementary School, which suffered serious damage to a large amount of its roof structure and to some exterior walls. The damage at this school is the basis for the EF2 rating. 1 death and 5 injuries were reported with this tornado.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:53 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:30 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:29 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 Houston radar (KHGX), 22 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:51 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 2024 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

76 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 77 of them

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.