EF1 tornado, Brookshire, 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 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

December 28, 2024

Touchdown

10:35 AM CST (16:35 UTC)

Lifted

10:55 AM CST (16:55 UTC)

On the ground

20 minutes

Path length

10.9 miles (17.6 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Waller and Harris counties

Touchdown point

29.818, -95.924

Lift-off point

29.931, -95.804

Record number

2412281035-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HGX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Several cars flipped over.
• Trees snapped, power lines down, roof partially ripped off on mobile homes
• Metal roof ripped off. Brick fence down.
• Roof gone. Container and RVs flipped over. Large tree down.

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 reported tornado damage in a mobile home park near Noel Lane, with cars flipped over. Survey teams confirmed damage in this area, finding trees snapped, powerlines down, roofs ripped off or partially ripped off of mobile homes. Additional damage was surveyed further southwest near Grassner Road, where a home was tied down with a hurricane anchored installation and it slid off. In the same area, a barn was overturned, lifted and blew away around 20 yards. Further northeast in Harris county, several pieces of sheet metal were bent on power lines and scattered along Freeman St, with damage to wooden fences. Partial loss of roofs and side walls was found in a few homes nearby by the survey team. Broken windows, garage doors, tree limbs and several large tree branches were also found in the area. The survey team rated this tornado as an EF1 with estimated winds up to 100 mph.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 16:34 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:00 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 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.

Houston Exec (TME), 8 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Houston radar (KHGX), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:33 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.