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EF3 tornado in Wilbarger County, Texas

Tornado May 4, 2022 · Wilbarger County, Texas

EF3

Rating

23.1 mi

Whole path

600 yd

Path width

$100K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Foard County → Wilbarger County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 600 yards (0.34 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

The long-lived Lockett tornado moved into Wilbarger County from Foard County and continued to move northeast. As the tornado approached County Road 138, the tornado created significant tree damage and roof damage to a home, and destroyed an outbuilding. Along County Road 138, at least seven large steel electrical transmission towers were bent over, with the western most tower blown to the south. Roof damage occurred to another home just north of County Road 138 an another outbuilding was heavily damaged along County Road 83. The tornado then turned to the north and damaged another house, destroyed a barn and broke wooden utility poles along County Road 85 to the south of Lockett.

The tornado continued to move north and moved through mainly the eastern portion of the town of Lockett where it produced roof and wall damage to a number of homes and businesses, as well as tree and power pole damage. The tornado continued to veer in direction and moved north-northwest in areas north of Lockett before dissipating.

The wider storm

Storms moved in from the Texas panhandle during the evening of the 4th, bringing tornadoes to western sections of north Texas.

Began near Lockett (33.9620, -99.4760).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

3 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF0 Foard County EFU King County EFU Foard County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1033695. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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