EF1 Tornado — Cass, Texas

2024-07-08 · near Patman, Cass, Texas

Event narrative

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 110 mph touched down between CR 2993 and CR 2915 east of Hughes Springs. Upon crossing CR 2993, the tornado uprooted multiple trees and snapped a wooden power pole near its base. The tornado continued west-northwest across a wooded area south of CR 2911, before crossing CR 2910, snapping and uprooting more trees. The tornado then took a more westerly course along the south side of Highway 11, with the tornado widest here, as trees on the north side of the highway were snapped and uprooted towards the south and east. Tree damage was observed west along Highway 11 to the Highway 49 intersection, before it became more isolated, and large limbs were snapped as the tornado lifted just before moving into Hughes Springs.

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 → (32.9881, -94.5301)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1200330. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.