EF1 Tornado — Cherokee, Texas

2025-11-20 · near Tucula, Cherokee, Texas

Event narrative

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 100 mph touched down just east of Highway 135 three miles northeast of Downtown Jacksonville, and three miles southwest of the Tecula community near its intersection with County Road 4212. Here, the tornado was at its strongest, where it destroyed a large barn next to a residential home. Metal roofing was thrown several hundred yards to the northeast while also puncturing a large tree trunk, and nearby trees were snapped and power lines were downed. Along County Road 4212, a carport was thrown on top of a garage and a neighboring manufactured home had its back porch blown off and thrown into the yard. Farther east along County Road 4212, numerous trees were uprooted and large branches were snapped. As County Road 4212 merged into County Road 4213, another barn was destroyed, and the roof of a carport was blown onto the driveway of a residence. Further north along County Road 4213, multiple large trees were uprooted and large branches were snapped. A nearby manufactured home also displayed significant roof damage, before the tornado lifted within a field near the railroad tracks that run north back to Highway 135.

Wider weather episode

Multiple bands of thunderstorms, mostly as multicellular clusters, developed during the late afternoon on November 20th over Central and east-Central Texas, before moving into East Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and Western and Northern Louisiana during the evening and overnight hours. Shear profiles were quite strong with 60 kts of bulk shear, 0-3 km SRH 200 m2/s2 and 0-1 km SRH 300 m2/s2 along with Sig Tor values of 1 were in place across East Texas. Several clusters developed bowing features, with one cluster in particular in Northern Cherokee County becoming severe and eventually developed rotation. This storm spawned a brief EF-1 tornado just northeast of Jacksonville which damaged/destroyed multiple barns, and damaged several homes.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.9978, -95.2293)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1298813. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.