EF2 Tornado — Red River, Texas

2025-04-04 · near Rosalie, Red River, Texas

Event narrative

A strong EF-2 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 130 mph touched down northeast of Bogota in the Rosalie community along CR 1305, moving northeast while intensifying as it snapped multiple hardwood and softwood trees. A home north of CR 1325 suffered major damage, including the destruction of the attached garage and a significant portion of roof loss. A nearby tree was also partially debarked. While the survey team was unable to access the property as it was behind locked gates, the Red River County Office of Emergency Management and local firefighters described the house as having been shifted off its foundation. Since the survey team was unable to closely inspect the house, the damage was rated as a high-end EF-2. The tornado continued northeast and moved into an oil field that was not accessible. However, the survey team met the field owner, who stated that a pump jack anchored in a concrete foundation was partially lifted from the foundation and blown over. The owner also said that there was a consistent and continuous path of snapped hardwood trees. Analysis of NDVI differencing of high-resolution satellite data imagery revealed the tornado damage path across this oil field. A consistent path of very large, snapped hardwood trees was found along CR 1340 to the intersection of CR 1357 and CR 1355. CR 1357 and 1355 were blocked by fallen trees and not accessible by the survey team. A couple of outbuildings were also destroyed. Given the size of the hardwood trees and consistent amount of trunk snappings observed, this damage was also rated as EF-2. The tornado continued to track northeast roughly parallel to FM 909, snapping smaller hardwood trees as it crossed CR 1355 and FM 909 south of the Red River County Airport. The damage became somewhat sporadic as the tornado crossed the intersection of Highway 82 and FM 1159 just east of Clarksville, but continued to damage more trees while crossing CR 3200, FM 1700, and CR 3202. The damage path generally followed along FM 1700 before moving north into a wooded area that was not accessible by ground. NDVI differencing indicated a sporadic damage path in this area as the tornado continued northward crossing CR 3217. The survey team observed one final point of tree damage along CR 3230 indicating the tornado lifting here, just north of the Reeds Settlement community.

Wider weather episode

A stationary front extended across portions of Northeast Texas and Southwest Arkansas during the early morning hours on April 4th, but lifted north into Southeast Oklahoma and Western Arkansas during the day. This was in response to an intensifying low level jet that developed ahead of a large upper trough that extended from the Intermountain West into the Plains, which provided the necessary lift across the very warm, moist, and unstable air mass in place south of this front across much of the region. As a result, numerous showers and thunderstorms developed across the area during the afternoon and evening, which produced damaging winds, large hail, and tornadoes. As these storms moved repeatedly over the same areas, flash flooding also became an issue across Northeast Texas and Southwest Arkansas through the 5th, where total rainfall amounts of 4-8 inches fell.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.4931, -95.1707)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1256242. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.