EFU Tornado — Briscoe, Texas

2024-06-02 · near Silverton, Briscoe, Texas

Event narrative

Two tornadoes occurred simultaneously in northern Briscoe County. This is the location of the second tornado that was reported. Early on the evening of June second, a supercell thunderstorm developed in far northern Swisher County. The storm crossed an outflow boundary as it moved east across northern and eastern Swisher County resulting in increasing rotation and development of a low-level mesocyclone. Storm chasers reported a tornado as the storm crossed into western Briscoe County. As this tornado was dissipating by around 1910 CST, another tornado began developing on the western flank of the first, becoming the dominant tornado by roughly 1914 CST. For four to five minutes both tornadoes appeared to be in contact with the ground simultaneously. The second tornado remained over open terrain to the east of County Road 207 and Texas State Highway 86 before dissipating just east of the Caprock Escarpment to the northeast of Silverton by 1934 CST.

Wider weather episode

The afternoon of the second brought an intense supercell thunderstorm to the south-central Texas Panhandle. The storm was spawned along a dryline over the southwest Texas Panhandle late in the afternoon, fueled by temperatures rising into the 90s. Moisture initially was on the moderate side, but that quickly changed, due to an outflow boundary advancing westward across the Interstate 27 corridor. East of the outflow boundary, temperatures were a little cooler, but the air was very moist due to a thunderstorm complex that moved across the eastern Texas Panhandle, western Oklahoma, and much of North Texas earlier in the day. The outflow boundary did trigger a few morning and early afternoon thunderstorms from near Childress (Childress County) to south of Paducah (Cottle County) to northeast of Aspermont (Stonewall County). Some of these storms were on the strong side and produced brief torrential rainfall. Thunderstorms along the dryline were initially not well organized, but quickly changed as they encountered the outflow boundary. The increased moisture and instability, in combination with stout southeasterly upslope winds caused the thunderstorms to quickly organize and strengthen. The dominant storm across the southern Texas Panhandle quickly intensified near Happy (Swisher County) with strong mid-level rotation developing. The cyclonic rotation strengthened and lowered with time as the storm tracked more easterly, then southeasterly. Extreme lift within the storm generated giant hail, while a wall cloud developed, lowered, and produced a tornado after passing very close to Vigo Park (Swisher County). Gargantuan hail fell from the storm, including a 7.02 inch diameter stone which was observed a few miles west-northwest of Vigo Park. This hailstone was confirmed as a new record for the largest diameter hailstone in Texas, surpassing the old record which was 6.416 inches in Hondo (Medina County) in 2021. After becoming tornadic, the storm continued to move southeastward, passing several miles to the north and northeast of Silverton (Briscoe County). The first tornado gradually dissipated, but another tornado formed as this was occurring, with two tornadoes in contact with the ground for roughly four to five minutes. Thereafter, the newly formed tornado became the dominant tornado and persisted another 20 minutes before dissipating east of Texas Highway 207 and north of Texas Highway 256. The tornado remained in open land and inflicted no known damage. The storm did continue to drop large hail as it moved near Caprock Canyons State Park (Briscoe County), but quickly diminished in intensity during the late evening hours.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.5759, -101.2842)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1174106. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.