Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2025

Unrated tornado, White Deer, Texas, May 26, 2025

Name: Unrated tornado, White Deer, Texas, May 26, 2025
Start: 2025-05-26T23:33:00.000Z
End: 2025-05-26T23:35:00.000Z
Location: White Deer, Texas

This Unrated tornado ran 0.0 miles across Carson County on May 26, 2025, touching down at 6:33 PM CDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.

The record

Rating: Unrated
Date: May 26, 2025
Touchdown: 6:33 PM CDT (23:33 UTC)
Lifted: 6:35 PM CDT (23:35 UTC)
On the ground: 2 minutes
Path length: 0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width: 25 yards (23 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
County: Carson County
Touchdown point: 35.360, -101.160
Lift-off point: 35.360, -101.160
Record number: 2505261733-01

What the Weather Service recorded

During the afternoon of the 26th several isolated supercells formed in the eastern Texas Panhandle and some produced hail up to the size of tennis balls. After these storms moved east of the Panhandle, a storm complex moved into the southwestern Texas Panhandle from New Mexico. This complex produced hail up to half dollar size along with severe wind gusts up to 68 mph.

Several photos and videos were submitted of a brief circulation that occurred east of FM 294 and south of County Road 13. The circulation lasted around a minute to a minute and a half. No damage was noted as the tornado remained in open fields.

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

The warnings

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:13 UTC and running to 05:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)	Expired	Product	Office
22:13 UTC	05:00 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	AMA
22:43 UTC	23:15 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	AMA
23:28 UTC	00:02 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	AMA
23:41 UTC	00:15 UTC	Tornado Warning	AMA
00:04 UTC	00:41 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	AMA
00:08 UTC	00:45 UTC	Tornado Warning	AMA
02:39 UTC	03:45 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	AMA

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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 air that afternoon

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.

Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 12:00Z

11.6 hours before the tornado, 51 km from the path. May 26, 2025.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.

Hodograph

The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.

Mixed-layer CAPE: 89 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -135 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 293 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 961 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 59 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 8 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 53 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 111 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: -0.0
Supercell composite: -0.2
0-3 km lapse rate: 5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 00:00Z

0.4 hours after it, 51 km from the path. May 27, 2025.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.

Hodograph

Mixed-layer CAPE: 1011 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -3 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 1889 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1464 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 40 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 4 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 10 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 69 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.1
Supercell composite: 0.9
0-3 km lapse rate: 8.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 52 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:34 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)	Report	Where	County	Remark
23:33 UTC	TORNADO	5 S White Deer	Carson, TX	Several photos and videos were submitted of a brief circulation that occurred east of FM 294 and south of County Road 13. The circulation lasted around a minute to a minute and a half. No damage was noted and this tornad
23:50 UTC	HAIL 2.5	9 S Kingsmill	Gray, TX	Corrects a previous report of location and hail in Groom. 2 to 2.5 inch hail fell at this location.
23:50 UTC	HAIL 2.5	Groom	Carson, TX
01:11 UTC	HAIL 1.75	Howardwick	Donley, TX	quarter to golfball sized hail fell on the north side of Howardwick.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the track Every 2025 tornado in Texas Every tornado in Texas since 1950 Warnings in force in Texas now The forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 26, 2025

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Damage
May 26	11:03 AM CDT	EF1	Grant Parish, LA	3.5	280	$100,000
May 26	3:01 PM CDT	EF1	Rankin, MS	3.3	70
May 26	2:26 PM MDT	EF0	San Miguel, NM	1.3	50
May 26	4:05 PM CDT	EF1	Clarke, MS	8.7	200
May 26	4:13 PM CDT	Unrated	Menard, TX	1.4	100
May 26	6:30 PM EDT	EF0	Orange, FL	0.1	15	$8,000

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.