EF1 Tornado — Camp, Texas

2025-03-04 · near Leesburg, Camp, Texas

Event narrative

This EF1 tornado was the continuation of a tornado that began in Franklin County. At this point, damage was difficult to locate as the tornado skirted the southern shore of Lake Bob Sandlin. Some tree damage indicative of a tornado was found along County Road 2417 and along Farm-to-Market Road 21. Move extensive tree damage was found beginning at County Road 2332, County Road 2330, and within the Thunderbird community just south of Lake Bob Sandlin. As the tornado continued east and moved along FM 1520, several structures were damaged at a fishing and recreational vehicle

campground. One outbuilding used as a cabin that was sitting on wooden beams and cinder blocks was blown away and destroyed. The cabin was blown into a neighboring RV, which was then overturned. Another RV was also overturned in this campground. Three injuries occurred to occupants of the RV campers. The tornado then crossed a cove of Lake Bob Sandlin, and damage started to become much more sporadic. More hardwood and softwood trees were snapped just north of Highway 255 and again just west of U.S. Highway 271 south of the Camp/Titus County Line where the tornado finally lifted. The tornado tracked nearly 8 miles across northern Camp County.

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 → (33.0389, -95.0935)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1249740. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.