EF1 tornado, Tucula, Texas, November 20, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

November 20, 2025

Touchdown

9:04 PM CST (03:04 UTC)

Lifted

9:07 PM CST (03:07 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

120 yards (110 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Cherokee County

Touchdown point

31.998, -95.229

Lift-off point

32.005, -95.221

Record number

2511202104-01

46 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Roof of carport on driveway
• porch roof- not house roof

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

Multiple bands of thunderstorms, mostly as multicellular clusters, developed during the late afternoon on November 20th over Central and east-Central Texas, before moving into East Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and Western and Northern Louisiana during the evening and overnight hours. Shear profiles were quite strong with 60 kts of bulk shear, 0-3 km SRH 200 m2/s2 and 0-1 km SRH 300 m2/s2 along with Sig Tor values of 1 were in place across East Texas. Several clusters developed bowing features, with one cluster in particular in Northern Cherokee County becoming severe and eventually developed rotation. This storm spawned a brief EF-1 tornado just northeast of Jacksonville which damaged/destroyed multiple barns, and damaged several homes.

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 100 mph touched down just east of Highway 135 three miles northeast of Downtown Jacksonville, and three miles southwest of the Tecula community near its intersection with County Road 4212. Here, the tornado was at its strongest, where it destroyed a large barn next to a residential home. Metal roofing was thrown several hundred yards to the northeast while also puncturing a large tree trunk, and nearby trees were snapped and power lines were downed. Along County Road 4212, a carport was thrown on top of a garage and a neighboring manufactured home had its back porch blown off and thrown into the yard. Farther east along County Road 4212, numerous trees were uprooted and large branches were snapped. As County Road 4212 merged into County Road 4213, another barn was destroyed, and the roof of a carport was blown onto the driveway of a residence. Further north along County Road 4213, multiple large trees were uprooted and large branches were snapped. A nearby manufactured home also displayed significant roof damage, before the tornado lifted within a field near the railroad tracks that run north back to Highway 135.

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.

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 139 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:05 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.