EF1 tornado, Sanger Lane Arpt to Mountain Spgs, 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 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 25, 2024

Touchdown

10:46 PM CDT (03:46 UTC)

Lifted

10:47 PM CDT (03:47 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.3 km)

Path width

800 yards (732 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.0 million

County

Denton County

Touchdown point

33.376, -97.119

Lift-off point

33.385, -97.097

Record number

2405252146-01

324 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 142 mph.

• Metal shop for restoring older cars. Beams are twisted.
• Not anchored very well. Small, shallow connections.
• Not much damage north of here
• Snapped trunks on property too. Lots of mobile home roof damage in this area. Trees uprooted and snapped.

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.

A short-lived EF-1 tornado occurred on the southwestern portions of Ray Roberts Lake impacting areas around and in the Ray Roberts Marina. Notable tree damage was observed along FM 1190 near FM 2164. A few homes sustained damage on Jones Street, with one home losing most of its roof as the back patio was pulled over the house (DI 2, DOD 6). In the marina, 24 RV and motor homes were damaged, tree damage was observed, and damage occurred to the floating docks and boats. The tornado moved onto the lake and dissipated. Maximum estimated winds were 110 mph.

This is segment #3 of 4 of a multi-segmented EF-3 supercellular tornado that began in Montague County, crossed into Cooke County, Denton County, and then back into Cooke County. The tornado was ongoing for about an hour and a half with a total path length just under 48 miles. The tornado was the strongest in Cooke County and resulted in 7 fatalities in Cooke County. ||The tornado entered Denton County at 1049 pm CDT time and exited into Cooke County at 1106 pm CDT for a total path length of 4.34 miles. The tornado was initially moving east but then started curving north as it entered its dissipation stage. The tornado entered the county on the the peninsula that includes Ray Roberts Lake State Park Johnson Branch. On the peninsula the tornado caused tree damage and pushed over some campers. The tornado then moved back over the lake and crossed back into Cooke County before dissipating. During this segment of the tornado, it was rated EF-1 with maximum estimated winds of 100 mph.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:30 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:59 UTC and running to 04:43 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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.

The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 92 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:47 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.