Thunderstorm Wind — Cooke, Texas

2011-06-18 · near Muenster, Cooke, Texas

Event narrative

A significant microburst occurred in the city of Muenster. Numerous trees were uprooted across the city, the field house of a school was damaged, a church sustained substantial damage, several roofs were torn off homes, mobile homes suffered significant damage, and tombstones at the local cemetery were blown over and crushed. The most costly damage occurred to two grain silos. Along Main Street, many businesses were heavily damaged and the windows were blown out of Orr Construction. The damage across the city was estimated to total over 1 million dollars.

Wider weather episode

Several thunderstorms developed along a stalled frontal boundary near Parker, Wise, and Cooke County. The environment was very unstable with a very dry airmass in the lowest 10 thousand feet of the atmosphere. This set up was perfect for very strong and localized microbursts, and several microbursts occurred in Cooke County. The most significant damage occurred in the town of Muenster. Later in the evening, a heatburst occurred in Tarrant County from light rain falling from a decaying thunderstorm into the very dry airmass. Winds around 70 mph were measured from this heatburst.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.6500, -97.3800)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 322181. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.