Unrated tornado, Briggs, Texas, May 1, 2025

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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

May 1, 2025

Touchdown

5:16 PM CDT (22:16 UTC)

Lifted

5:30 PM CDT (22:30 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (0.9 km)

Path width

1 yards (1 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Burnet County

Touchdown point

30.903, -97.954

Lift-off point

30.895, -97.954

Record number

2505011616-01

29 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS EWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Trees snapped in river bed
• Poorly built, rotted, and up on blocks.
• Estimate of end point based on chaser time and radar data.
• Drone survey indicated side panelling of large carport/barn damaged. Large tree branches on property snapped. A container trailer was thrown 800 feet to the southeast toward the Lampasas River.

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

Thunderstorms developed along an outflow boundary over the northern Texas Hill Country in a warm, moist airmass. Strong instability, vertical wind shear, and steep mid-level lapse rates led to supercells that produced three tornadoes and large hail.

Based on spotter footage, a tornado formed over open country just northwest of Briggs, and may at one point have lifted and reformed. The tornado occurred in an area that was not accessible by a National Weather Service survey team. The location and time is estimated based on radar data and spotter accounts. The width of this tornado is not known, and the entry is forced by the software.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS EWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:05 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:30 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:46 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 Ft Hood radar (KGRK), 58 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:14 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 2025 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

1 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.