EF3 tornado, Robert Lee Arpt 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 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 3, 2024

Touchdown

4:35 PM CDT (21:35 UTC)

Lifted

4:55 PM CDT (21:55 UTC)

On the ground

20 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.7 km)

Path width

350 yards (320 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Coke County

Touchdown point

31.837, -100.490

Lift-off point

31.839, -100.438

Record number

2405031535-02

7 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 140 mph.

• Walls of main house are intact but roof is heavily damaged and was mostly torn off, many trees broken and outbuildings destroyed
• Storm chaser reported very large tornado.
• Owner's refrigerator found on neighbor's property months after tornado struck.
• From the owner: "The metal building had siding and a wall there where you see it open now. It was a completely enclosed barn but the tornado ripped off the one side of the wall and damaged all of the other siding as well. All the repair estimates have been to replace all the siding or Knock it down and start over. I only tell you this because a couple of the contractors thought it was built with that one wall open, but it was not, it was completely enclosed with siding like a barn"

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 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.

NWS San Angelo, TX wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at May 3, 2:24 PM CDT, 2 hours 11 minutes earlier.

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In the hours before

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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.

San Angelo/Mathis (SJT), 54 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), 52 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:34 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.

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.