EF1 Tornado — Panola, Texas

2024-07-08 · near Woods, Panola, Texas

Event narrative

This is a continuation of the Northern Shelby County tornado. This EF-1 tornado, with estimated maximum winds near 100 mph, continued north-northwest through Southern Panola County along CR 439, where numerous trees were snapped and uprooted. The tornado then crossed CR 430 about 1.5 miles east of FM 699, before moving across a heavily wooded area and moving across CR 430 again just east of CR 4353. Additional trees were snapped and uprooted in this area, before moving along CR 437 just east of FM 699 where the tornado began to weaken and lift, with only large branches snapped here.

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 → (31.9780, -94.1500)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1200323. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.