EF0 tornado, Pin Hook, Texas, May 8, 2024

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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. 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

EF0

Date

May 8, 2024

Touchdown

8:27 PM CDT (01:27 UTC)

Lifted

8:28 PM CDT (01:28 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$2,000

County

Lamar County

Touchdown point

33.801, -95.323

Lift-off point

33.800, -95.317

Record number

2405081927-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• Lone tree in a pasture snapped.
• Two snapped trees lying east; one uproot lying southeast.
• Hardwood rotten at core, facing north. No damage to adjacent metal canopy, nor to other nearby trees.
• Divergent pattern with snaps of 2 small pines.

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

Severe thunderstorms impacted counties along the Red River and in the northeastern portions of North Texas on May 8th. Hail up to golf ball size was the main impact, but 2 small tornadoes occurred in rural parts of Lamar County. On May 9th, scattered thunderstorms developed along and ahead of a cold front as a shortwave trough moved overhead. These storms produced large hail up to softball size (in Hill County), damaging winds up to 80 mph (in Delta and Lamar counties), and flash flooding.

A short tornado damage path was found south of Pinhook by local law enforcement. Small tree limbs and light tin metal damage was observed. This path location is estimated based on reports. Maximum estimated winds were 70 mph.

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

30 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:57 UTC, 30 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:34 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:42 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 Western Arkansas radar (KSRX), 187 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:24 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

52 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.