Tornado in King County, Texas

Numerous storm chasers documented a tornado that began near the intersection of US Highway 83 and Farm to Market Road 1168. The tornado moved roughly east-southeast remaining close to Farm to Market Road 1168 and 3416 for about five miles before turning east and crossing County Road 204. An NWS storm survey revealed no known damage.

The afternoon and evening of the fourth brought active weather, including a cyclic tornadic thunderstorm that affected portions of the Rolling Plains. The severe weather was triggered by a dryline, in combination with a strong storm system approaching from the Great Basin into the central Rockies. Initially, isolated storm development occurred over the southwest and south-central Texas Panhandle Wednesday afternoon. These storms quickly became strong to severe, and dropped hail from quarter to ping pong ball sized. Greater intensity storms formed a bit later in the afternoon, erupting ahead of a dryline surge over the west-central Rolling Plains. Strong instability and wind shear caused the more intense storms to start rotating, with the cyclonically rotating storms moving slowly eastward and the anticyclonically rotating storms racing north-northeastward. The most intense storm of the day formed east of Crosbyton (Crosby County), moved northeastward to near Afton (Dickens County), then more directly eastward near Dumont (King County) and Grow (King County). The tornado then moved across rural parts of northeast King County and southeast Cottle County. As it did so, the storm generated baseball to softball size hail and a few tornadoes. The first tornado report of the day came in from west of Dumont, where a dusty circulation took shape under a rotating wall cloud. This tornado was well documented by storm chasers, but inflicted no known damage as it remained over open country. The next tornado formed roughly a half hour later near Grow. This tornado persisted around 15 minutes, and moved roughly east-southeast remaining close to Farm to Market Roads 1168 and 3416 for about five miles before turning east and crossing County Road 204. The final tornado developed at 1700 CST southeast of Chalk (Cottle County), then tracked over remote portions of northeast King County before crossing into Foard County. This tornado appeared to be wider on chaser videos, but caused no observed damage. Since no damage was observed with any of the three tornadoes documented, all three tornadoes received an EF-Unknown rating.