EF1 Tornado — Bowie, Texas

2025-03-04 · near Dalby Spgs, Bowie, Texas

Event narrative

This QLCS-embedded EF1 tornado began along U.S. Highway 259 in southwest Bowie County and moved east northeast across County Road 4307, Interstate 30, County Road 4210, County Road 4230, and Farm-to-Market Road 561, damaging numerous trees. Most of the trees were either uprooted or snapped with several large limbs being downed on power lines. As the tornado continued northeast, it removed most of the metal roof covering from a house at the intersection County Road 4206 and County Road 4204. More tree damage was noted as the tornado crossed County Road 990, County Road 4121, County Road 4122, and County Road 4120. More tree damage occurred along Highway 98, County Road 4015, County Road 4011, and County Road 4116. At the Barry B. Telford Unit, a large metal building system on the southeast side of the prison property was destroyed when the metal frame was pulled free from its anchors. Three camper trailers in the prison's RV park were overturned and destroyed. The tornado continued northeast, breaking more large softwood limbs along FM Road 1840 and Highway 8 in the southern portion of New Boston where it finally lifted. The tornado had a maximum width of 580 yards and tracked nearly 19 miles.

Wider weather episode

A very mature squall line developed along and ahead of an advancing cold front across the Ark-La-Tex region during the mid to late morning into early afternoon on March 4th. Damaging wind gusts were the primary threat with this squall line, but numerous strong mesovorticies became embedded within this quasi-linear convective system (QLCS). Dew points were in the mid to upper 60s with over 500 J/kg of MLCAPE and 450 m2/s2 of 0-1 km storm relative helicity (SRH). As temperatures continued to warm into the lower 70s with MLCAPE increasing to around 1000 J/kg MLCAPE, the increasing threat of supercell thunderstorm development only heightened the tornado threat. As a result, numerous reports of damaging straight-line wind gusts and several tornadoes were documented across East and Northeast Texas.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.3404, -94.7073)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1249736. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.