EF3 tornado, Celina, Texas, May 25, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

May 25, 2024

Touchdown

11:23 PM CDT (04:23 UTC)

Lifted

11:24 PM CDT (04:24 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.2 million

County

Collin County

Touchdown point

33.354, -96.757

Lift-off point

33.348, -96.746

Record number

2405252223-01

15 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 155 mph.

• Numerous large trees uprooted and damaged. House is mostly fine with shingle damage. Maybe a small puncture hole from trees.
• Barndominium doors blown out
• Large storage contained tossed about 10 yards
• Damage to marina on satellite imagery

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

Another round of dryline-induced convection took place the night of May 25 as a shortwave trough moved overhead. Thunderstorms were more isolated in nature, but one ambitious supercell produced multiple tornadoes the evening of May 25th. A total of 5 tornadoes were produced by the supercell as it moved across Montague, Cooke, Denton, Collin, and Hunt counties, and one more EF-2 occurred from a separate storm in Eastland County. The most notable tornado of the event was a long-track EF-3 tornado across Montague, Cooke, and Denton counties that killed 7 people and injured over 100, drawing national attention to our forecast area and costing an estimated $20 million in damage. A short but intense satellite tornado was also rated EF-3 north of Celina in Collin County. Additional EF-1 tornadoes occurred in Denton, Collin, and Hunt counties. Storm surveys for this event took 3 days to complete. In the after math of the storms the night of May 25th, dissipating thunderstorms produced strong winds across the DFW Metroplex with measured gusts of 60-70 mph winds causing sporadic tree and fence damage.

An intense satellite tornado hit a few homes along Prairie Meadow Lane, just north of Celina (in unincorporated Collin County), causing destructive damage. At least 2 residences along this street sustained moderate to high end EF-3 damage (DI 2, DOD 7 & 8) with estimated maximum winds of 165 mph, with roofs and walls destroyed. Several additional homes sustained EF-2 or EF-1 damage along this street.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:00 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 03:46 UTC and running to 06:19 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:17 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.

Mc Kinney (TKI), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:23 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

19 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.