EF2 tornado, Silver to Robert Lee, Texas, May 3, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 3, 2024

Touchdown

3:40 PM CDT (20:40 UTC)

Lifted

3:55 PM CDT (20:55 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

4.5 miles (7.3 km)

Path width

125 yards (114 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Coke County

Touchdown point

32.028, -100.703

Lift-off point

31.965, -100.704

Record number

2405031440-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SJT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Storm chaser reported very large tornado.

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

A favorable weather pattern for widespread severe weather was in place across west central Texas during early May. There was an upper level southwest flow and a sharp dryline in the area. Also, extreme instability was present along with strong vertical wind shear during the late afternoon and evening hours. Supercell thunderstorms developed and produced strong tornadoes in Jones, Runnels and Sterling counties which resulted in damage to homes and other structures. Also, severe thunderstorms produced giant size hail and damaging winds.

The Silver Tornado damaged a private property just north of FM2029.|The roof of a ranch house was completely ripped off but the walls |remained standing. The tornado also completely destroyed a metal |barn and threw building material a considerable distance away from|the house and barn. The estimated peak wind of the tornado was 125 mph.

The Robert Lee Tornado completely destroyed a manufactured home just west of|Highway 208 as well as damaged the walls and roof of a metal barn|next door to the home. In addition, the tornado damaged the roof|of a home along Highway 208 and snapped some large tree limbs.|Also, the tornado lifted the roof off a concrete building on|Valley View Road. The tornado then moved back to the northwest|before weakening and occluding south of Robert Lee. The estimated |wind speed was 140 mph.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:15 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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.

Sweetwater/Avenger Field Airport (SWW), 57 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The San Angelo radar (KSJT), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:42 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

8 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.