EF2 tornado in Tarrant County, Texas

An EF-2 tornado began in Kennedale, and then moved north-northeast into Arlington. In its occlusion phase, the tornado curved back to the northwest; ending its track near the east shores of Lake Arlington along Waterview Drive. The path length of the tornado was 6.4 miles long with a width of approximately 150 yards. Damage from the tornado began near the Texas Raceway. Five manufactured homes were heavily damaged or destroyed near the racing strip. Moving to the north-northeast, the tornado produced sporadic damage to trees, power poles, and a storage facility as the storm organized rapidly. Part of the roof of a warehouse at a business on Tower Drive near Business 287 was torn off and tossed onto a city water tower nearby. The warehouse was also damaged by debris tossed by the tornado. Other businesses near this intersection were also damaged. Damage to residences began north of Sublett Rd. EF-2 damage was noted to a few homes between Sublett Rd and Hwy 287, but most areas received EF-0 or EF-1 damage. Approximately 143 homes and apartments sustained some type of damage in this area. Most of the homes appeared to have the initial failure at or near the garage, with subsequent damage coming to exterior walls or portions of roofs. Before the tornado crossed Hwy 287, it damaged the roofs of two buildings at the Chesterfield Apartments. Once the tornado crossed Hwy 287, it cut a path to the north-northeast causing mostly minor roof and fence damage to approximately 25-30 homes between Hwy 287 and Interstate 20. The tornado crossed Interstate 20 between Kelly Elliott Rd and Green Oaks Blvd. First the tornado damaged a church on the north side of the interstate, then the tornado went on to do significant damage in the Oldfield neighborhood just north of Interstate 20 near Martin High School. Approximately 100 homes were damaged in this neighborhood with an additional 85 damaged in the surrounding areas. Several homes experienced significant damage to garages and progressive failure of garage walls and portions of roofs. A few residences in this neighborhood along Haverford Dr and Thorncliffe Dr sustained EF-2 damage. Large trees were also uprooted in the neighborhood. The damage path continued to the north from this area with several other homes and trees sustaining damage near Little Road. Just west of Martin High School, the tornado began to occlude and turn northwest. At this point, near Green Oaks Boulevard and Chaperito Street, a nursing home suffered significant roof and outside wall damage, with the initial failure occurring near a large window. Nearly all of the residential damage in Kennedale and Arlington was EF-0 or EF-1. Only a small portion of the damage path suffered EF-2 damage. A total of 5 homes in Kennedale and 13 homes in Arlington were determined to be destroyed. Another 44 homes sustained major damage and 247 sustained minor damage. An additional 273 residences were affected by the storms on this day. Maximum estimated winds with the tornado were 135 mph. Eight people sustained injuries from the tornado, but only one of those injured was considered severe.

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.