EF1 tornado, Clarendon, Texas, May 1, 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

May 1, 2024

Touchdown

4:04 PM CDT (21:04 UTC)

Lifted

4:19 PM CDT (21:19 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

1.8 miles (2.9 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Donley County

Touchdown point

34.921, -101.013

Lift-off point

34.916, -100.981

Record number

2405011504-01

12 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 90 mph.

• Potential start location. Water pumping windmill was toppled and destroyed.
• damage point from local rancher
• rancher point of mesquite tree damage.
• rancher point damaged mesquite

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

An elongated upper level trough promoted a dryline setup for severe storms in the eastern Texas Panhandle. Parameters that day begun as conditional, as a thick layer of low level clouds were present that morning in the far east, and an outflow boundary had moved in from convection on the previous day. However, as skies started to clear out and the cap was eroded, the true potential of the system was realized and thunderstorms initiated off the dryline between 3 -4 pm. A favorable environment for supercells to produce large hail and even some giant hail had materialized, and despite modest low level wind shear values at the onset of the event, tornadoes quickly spun up and posed threats for locations near Clarendon, in Spearman, and other parts surrounding. Strong downdraft and outflow winds were also a concern, but no reports had come in for straight line wind damage. As storms moved east throughout the afternoon and evening, they weakened as they entered into a less favorable environment thanks to some of the low clouds from the morning not clearing up in time to sustain thunderstorms.

This tornado touched down briefly in ranch land to the west southwest of Clarendon. The damage appeared to be mostly from damaged mesquite brush and perhaps some fencing material. Survey information was obtained from local officials as access was hard due to private land and terrain. The tornado was also documented on chaser/spotter footage and appeared to not be on the ground but for a couple of minutes before lifting. The maximum estimated winds were 80mph.

This tornado touched down after the initial parent tornado occluded. Based on spotter/chaser video, it appears to have developed in about the same locations as the first Clarendon tornado. It became wide, likely going over the same locations as the previous tornado. It then started to follow the rim of the mesocyclone, likely being more of a satellite tornado around the main mesocyclone. The tornado was recorded as being on the ground for about 15 minutes before finally lifting. It likely did not move very fast before finally becoming corkscrew in nature before lifting. Damage seems to be limited to mesquite brush damage. However, the worst known damage was to a water pumping windmill which was toppled and destroyed by the tornado. The maximum estimated winds were 90mph.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:58 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:31 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:14 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.

Amarillo - Rick Husband Intl (AMA), 73 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 74 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:02 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

12 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.