EF2 Tornado — Morris, Texas

2025-04-04 · near Lone Star, Morris, Texas

Event narrative

A EF-2 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 120 mph touched down along Sand Crossing Road/CR 4428 just north of Big Cypress Bayou, downing tree limbs and snapping a couple of softwood tree trunks. The tornado moved northeast, crossing CR 2225 and moved along or just west of CR 2223 on the western shore of Ellison Creek Reservoir. A large amount of tree damage consisting of snaps and uproots were observed. The tornado then strengthened to EF-2 intensity when it damaged three homes northeast of CR 2236. The most significant structural damage was to a house that had its garage door buckled, allowing the tornadic winds inside the home, which uplifted and removed most of the roof on the back of the house. Roof removal/collapse was also noted on a couple of boat docks in this vicinity. The tornado crossed Ellison Creek Reservoir and caused widespread tree damage at a church camp on the eastern shore between Camp Circle and Lacewood Drive. There was a concentrated area of dozens of very large pine trees that were snapped at a very consistent height. Six cars were rolled and thrown approximately 100 yards from a nearby church building into this area of concentrated tree damage. Approximately 120 people were in the building where the vehicles were parked. They received the Tornado Warning several minutes before the tornado struck and were able to take cover in a safe place. The tornado then moved northeast into a neighborhood and uprooted and snapped numerous trees. Dozens of homes sustained minor to major damage due to parts of trees or entire trees falling on them. The tornado crossed Highway 259, uprooted more trees, and caused minor roof damage to a home along Bunt Drive. It then crossed Forrest Hill Road and caused more tree damage along FM 3421 west of CR 2113. While the survey team was unable to locate additional damage due to limited road access, NDVI differencing of high-resolution imagery indicated that the tornado continued northeast and damaged more trees before lifting in a wooded area south of Ore Road and west of CR 2113.

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 → (32.9221, -94.7387)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1256352. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.