EF2 tornado in Dallas County, Texas

This tornado is a continuation from Ellis County. The tornado crossed into Dallas County near I-35E at the Ellis/Dallas County line. Light damage was noted as the tornado crossed into the county but then the tornado moved into the city of Lancaster and struck the Portofino Apartments where it damaged the roofs of two buildings and tore the roof off another building. Cars were moved in the parking lots, and the windows were blown out in one car. The tornado did significant damage to homes just northeast of the apartment complex, beginning on Sunny Meadow Dr. However, the most significant damage occurred near the intersections of Wintergreen Rd, Telephone Rd, and North Dallas Ave. Many homes in this area were heavily damaged or destroyed. Some cars were pushed into fences, many trees and tree branches were knocked down, an RV was crumpled, and some fence boards penetrated homes. The Cedar Valley Christian Academy also sustained heavy damage when it lost an entire wall. The tornado continued northeast crossing Interstate 20 near Dynasty Drive. The tornado hit a trucking company along the interstate, lofting several empty semis into the air. About 50 semitrailers were damaged or destroyed. The tornado damaged a few additional trees northeast of the trucking company and caused some minor roof damage in the Stagecoach neighborhood. The damage track ended near Palm Island St and Tioga St. In the city of Lancaster, 64 homes were destroyed, 51 sustained major damage, and another 58 sustained minor damage. An additional two homes were destroyed in the Dallas city limits. One home was destroyed when one of the semis from the trucking company was thrown into the house. The path length of the tornado in Dallas County was approximately 9.4 miles long but the total length of the tornado was 13.7 miles. Maximum estimated winds were 130 mph with a maximum width of 200 yards. Ten people in the city of Lancaster were injured, and two people sustained serious injuries.

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.