EF0 Tornado — Rusk, Texas

2024-07-08 · near Lake Cherokee, Rusk, Texas

Event narrative

A brief EF-0 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 85 mph touched down along the south side of Lake Cherokee in Northern Rusk County along Lake Road, where several large branches were snapped. The tornado then crossed Lake Cherokee as a waterspout and Post Oak Trail as a tornado where additional large limbs were snapped, before moving into Southeast Gregg County east of FM 2011.

Wider weather episode

Tropical Storm Beryl briefly strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds as it made landfall along the Southeast Texas coast near Matagorda Bay during the early morning hours of July 8th, and tracked north-northeast across East Texas and into Southwest Arkansas during the afternoon and evening hours. While Beryl weakened into a tropical storm over portions of Deep East Texas by mid-afternoon, very strong wind shear and helicity existed near and east of the center, contributing to the largest tornado outbreak in NWS Shreveport history, as well as with any landfalling tropical system. A total of 43 tornadoes were confirmed through NWS surveys across East Texas, North Louisiana, and Southwest Arkansas, before Beryl weakened into a depression by late afternoon over East Texas. As a part of this outbreak, fifteen tornadoes touched down across portions of East Texas.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.3506, -94.6940)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1200199. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.