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EF3 tornado in Gray County, Texas

Tornado November 16, 2015 · Gray County, Texas

EF3
Rating
10.9 mi
Path length
500 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 500 yards (0.28 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

This tornado was produced by the second supercell thunderstorm to impact the Pampa area and the same storm which resulted in the Groom tornado. The most significant damage was to the Halliburton Plant just east of Pampa. Sturdy commercial steel framed building at the Halliburton Plant were completely leveled with nmerous vehicles tossed on top of the rubble. This tornado was less than 3 miles from directly hitting the city of Pampa. One manufactured home was completely destroyed south of Pampa. This tornado was rated EF-3 with maximum winds estimated to be 155 mph based on the degree of damage.

The wider storm

A powerful storm system brought significant severe weather to the region. Tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail accompanied thunderstorms that formed during the afternoon hours and persisted into the evening. This was a very unusual event for late fall in the Central High Plains. One significant factor in this anomalous event was the presence of an unusual amount of moisture for mid-November, contributing to relatively high values of instability. No tornadoes had previously been documented in the Texas Panhandle during the month of November.

Began near Pampa (35.4570, -100.9660).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

14 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 608859. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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