Unrated tornado, Turkey, 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 mph

   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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

May 1, 2024

Touchdown

5:49 PM CDT (22:49 UTC)

Path length

0.0 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hall County

Touchdown point

34.493, -100.935

Lift-off point

34.493, -100.935

Record number

2405011649-01

Numerous severe thunderstorms developed on the afternoon of the first in advance of a short wave trough moving across southern New Mexico and northern Chihuahua. A dryline initially positioned near the Texas/New Mexico state line early in the morning, mixed eastward through the day, settling along and just east of the Interstate 27/US Highway 87 corridor. Scattered thunderstorms initially developed along this dryline late in the afternoon where extremely high surface dew points in the upper 60s to lower 70s were observed. A strong elevated mixed layer existed above the moist low level air which allowed for explosive convective development once the cap was breached. Most unstable parcels were estimated in excess of 4000 Joules per kg of instability based off of rapid refresh model soundings. Severe wind and hail reports were observed from the southeastern Texas Panhandle through the central and southwestern South Plains. Low level winds significantly backed to the east in the extreme southeastern Texas Panhandle, ahead of a surface low, increasing low level wind shear beneath supercell thunderstorms. A few of these supercells were able to produce tornadoes but no known damage occurred with them due to the tornadoes remaining over open country. One supercell in particular produced a tornado, very large hail, and flash flooding in Hall County. This supercell became very slow moving once over western Hall County and produced an estimated 3-9 inches of rainfall. Much of this rainfall was over rural areas but did cause flash flooding near Farm to Market 657 near the Little Red River and Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River. Another supercell thunderstorm produced severe wind gusts in northwestern Crosby County, overturning irrigation center pivots. This storm produced an estimated three to four inches of rainfall in a short time period which caused flash flooding. Additionally, wake lows developed behind the departing convection which produced a couple of severe wind reports.||High wind gusts from the Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet network are below:||64 mph at South Plains (Floyd County) and|59 mph at Memphis (Hall County).

Several storm chasers photographed a brief tornado near Texas State Highway 70 north of Turkey.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:30 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:25 UTC and running to 03:36 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.

The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 108 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:50 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.