EF1 Tornado — Hansford, Texas

2024-05-01 · near Spearman, Hansford, Texas

Event narrative

This tornado occurred on the northeast side of Spearman. It initially touched down near Brandt Street and Kenneth Avenue(FM 759 760). Here it snapped some tree branches, lifted some carports and caused minor fence damage. It then traveled north along County Road 25, where it snapped a few power poles and this is where it was given its highest rating. As it neared Highway 15, it collapsed an empty grain silo and caused some minor shingle damage to a few roofs along County Road 25. The tornado

turned east, crossing Highway 15 and caused additional minor roof damage and snapped branches to hardwood trees. It finally lifted just to the east of Highway 15. The maximum estimated wind speed was 98mph.

Wider weather episode

An elongated upper level trough promoted a dryline setup for severe storms in the eastern Texas Panhandle. Parameters that day begun as conditional, as a thick layer of low level clouds were present that morning in the far east, and an outflow boundary had moved in from convection on the previous day. However, as skies started to clear out and the cap was eroded, the true potential of the system was realized and thunderstorms initiated off the dryline between 3 -4 pm. A favorable environment for supercells to produce large hail and even some giant hail had materialized, and despite modest low level wind shear values at the onset of the event, tornadoes quickly spun up and posed threats for locations near Clarendon, in Spearman, and other parts surrounding. Strong downdraft and outflow winds were also a concern, but no reports had come in for straight line wind damage. As storms moved east throughout the afternoon and evening, they weakened as they entered into a less favorable environment thanks to some of the low clouds from the morning not clearing up in time to sustain thunderstorms.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.1978, -101.1874)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1175477. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.