EF1 tornado, Lake Cherokee to Hallsville, Texas, July 8, 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

July 8, 2024

Touchdown

2:19 PM CDT (19:19 UTC)

Lifted

2:34 PM CDT (19:34 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

9.8 miles (15.8 km)

Path width

215 yards (197 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$85,000

Counties

Harrison, Panola and Rusk counties

Touchdown point

32.354, -94.459

Lift-off point

32.449, -94.584

Record number

2407081319-01

35 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• More blown in doors on the hangar
• Another hangar with large doors pushed in
• Large hangar door was completely blown off

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

Tropical Storm Beryl briefly strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds as it made landfall along the Southeast Texas coast near Matagorda Bay during the early morning hours of July 8th, and tracked north-northeast across East Texas and into Southwest Arkansas during the afternoon and evening hours. While Beryl weakened into a tropical storm over portions of Deep East Texas by mid-afternoon, very strong wind shear and helicity existed near and east of the center, contributing to the largest tornado outbreak in NWS Shreveport history, as well as with any landfalling tropical system. A total of 43 tornadoes were confirmed through NWS surveys across East Texas, North Louisiana, and Southwest Arkansas, before Beryl weakened into a depression by late afternoon over East Texas. As a part of this outbreak, fifteen tornadoes touched down across portions of East Texas.

A brief EF-0 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 85 mph touched down along the south side of Lake Cherokee in Northern Rusk County along Lake Road, where several large branches were snapped. The tornado then crossed Lake Cherokee as a waterspout and Post Oak Trail as a tornado where additional large limbs were snapped, before moving into Southeast Gregg County east of FM 2011.

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 110 mph touched down about 4 miles northeast of Tatum in Northwest Panola County, about one-half mile southeast of Highway 43 along FM 959, where several large limbs were snapped. This initial tornado touchdown was confirmed by video from homeowners along FM 959, with the tornado tracking northwest before crossing Highway 43. Numerous trees were snapped and uprooted, with several homes had portions of their siding and metal roofing peeled off. The tornado moved over open pastureland, snapping a few more trees before crossing over into extreme Northeast Rusk County.

This is a continuation of the Northwest Panola County tornado. This EF-1 tornado, with estimated maximum winds around 110 mph, remained over pastureland in extreme Northeast Rusk County before crossing into Southwest Harrison County. Several trees were snapped and uprooted in this area before the tornado tracked across the Sabine River into Harrison County.

This is a continuation of the Northeast Rusk County tornado. This EF-1 tornado, with maximum estimated winds near 110 mph, crossed the Sabine River into Southwest Harrison County about 8 miles south of Hallsville, tracking over FM 2625 and snapping/uprooting multiple trees before crossing FM 2625 a second time to the northwest. Tree damage was not as significant when the tornado crossed a second time, as it lifted just north of FM 968 west of FM 450.

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

37 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:42 UTC, 37 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:02 UTC and running to 02:45 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:30 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 64 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:17 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

51 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.