EF0 tornado in Dallas County, Texas
Tornado April 3, 2012 · Dallas County, Texas
The path drawn at its surveyed width of 30 yards (0.02 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.
What the National Weather Service wrote
An EF-0 tornado with maximum estimated winds around 85 mph occurred in Mesquite. The tornado began near Independence Drive and Meadow Lane then tracked east. Minor roof damage was noted along the track of the tornado and several large trees were split or had large branches broken off. Near the end of the track on the east side of N Galloway Ave, a car service station sustained significant damage. The winds from the tornado penetrated the building through the large service doors. The roof was ripped off the building and the back wall collapsed. The path length of this tornado was 0.3 miles with a width of about 30 yards. Two people sustained minor injuries.
The wider storm
A historic North Texas tornado outbreak occurred on April 3rd, with 17 tornadoes developing from the DFW Metroplex east to Hopkins County. An EF-3 tornado tore through the town of Forney, heavily damaging homes in the Diamond Creek subdivision. Three EF-2 tornadoes damaged parts of Arlington and Kennedale in Tarrant County; Red Oak, Lancaster, and Dallas in Ellis and Dallas counties; and Royse City in Rockwall and Hunt counties. An EF-1 tornado caused damage near Joshua in Johnson County, and the remaining 12 tornadoes were rated EF-0s. In addition to the tornadoes, large hail damaged many parts of the DFW Metroplex. Approximately 110 airplanes at DFW International Airport were damaged by the hail and taken out of service until repaired. No fatalities occurred and only 29 people were injured. Of the 29 injuries, only 3 were considered serious but everyone made a full recovery. The environmental set-up on this day consisted of a cut-off low over New Mexico with a front draped north-to-south across the western counties of the CWA. By mid to late morning, strong and severe storms developed along the front as a lobe of energy rotated into west Texas and forcing from this energy overspread the front. The atmosphere was already unstable and uncapped by this time. In addition, a Mesoscale Convective System in Oklahoma sent an outflow boundary south across the Red River. This outflow boundary moved south of the DFW Metroplex by the late morning hours, and isolated storms began to develop south of the outflow boundary but east of the front. As these storms moved north and crossed the outflow boundary, the low level rotation increased and the storms quickly became tornadic. All of the tornadic storms were tied to this outflow boundary as it retreated north as a warm front.
Began near New Hope (32.7982, -96.6156).
Other tornadoes from the same storm system
16 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 377444. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.
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