EF2 Tornado — Bowie, Texas

2018-01-21 · near College Hill, Bowie, Texas

Event narrative

An EF-2 tornado with maximum estimated winds around 125 mph touched down along Highway 259 just southwest of Dekalb and tracked northeast across the intersection of County Road 4231 and Farm to Market Road 44. Here, it caused significant damage to a well constructed two-story home shifting it off its foundation, and significantly damaging eight chicken houses, two of which were destroyed. The tornadic storm continued northeast where it crossed County Road 4230 and significantly damaged the Dekalb Water Treatment Plant, before crossing the intersection of Farm to Market Road 990 and Farm to Market Road 1840 where a one-story home had its roof removed and several hardwood and softwood trees were snapped or uprooted. As the tornado tracked across County Road 4228, there were signs of it widening where the snapped hardwood trees and downed power lines were more noticeable. Once the tornado tracked across Highway 82, hardwood trees snapped at its base and significant damage to roofs of a church and nearby one and two-story homes were prevalent. The tornadic storm continued to move northeast across County Road 3201 where numerous hardwood trees were downed and a camper was destroyed. The tornado continued northeast where it crossed County Road 3203, uplifting a metal roof from a home and destroyed seven chicken farm buildings. Once it crossed northeast across County Road 3202, it split and twisted hardwood trees and destroyed an outbuilding before finally dissipating.

In all, 16 single family homes were damaged, 9 suffering minor damage, and 7 with major damage, with 32 mobile homes damaged, 25 suffering minor damage, 4 with major damage, and 3 mobile homes destroyed. The Dekalb Water Treatment Plant suffered about $500,000 in damage, with another $500,000 damage done to the chicken houses that were destroyed, as well to an auto repair shop and a gun shop that were significantly damaged. Approximately 200,000 chickens were killed, and 1 cow was killed as well.

Wider weather episode

A deep upper level trough moved out of the Inter Mountain West and into the Southern Plains on January 21st. This trough allowed for the return of much warmer temperatures and a return of Gulf of Mexico moisture, replacing a cold continental arctic air mass the Southern Plains had been under the influence of the week before. By afternoon, dewpoints were in the lower 60s as far north as the Middle Red River Valley of Northeast Texas, Southeast Oklahoma and Southwest Arkansas. This yielded CAPE values around 500 J/KG but very strong Deep Layer Shear was present along with strong low level directional shear. Storms ignited during the late afternoon and early evening hours of January 21st across Northern Texas and Southern Oklahoma along and just ahead of a dryline. Later in the evening, low level directional shear continued to increase and therefore, storms took on the form of supercells. Some of these storms produced large hail and damaging wind gusts. One long track supercell resulted in a tornado which did damage across portions of Bowie County Texas before crossing the Red River and continuing into Little River County Arkansas. The Pacific cold front in association with the upper level trough eventually caught up with the dryline moving into Northeast Texas and Southeast Oklahoma during the overnight hours of January 21st and into the predawn hours of January 22nd, but this broken line of thunderstorms was not responsible for any additional wind damage, hail, or tornadoes across Northeast Texas.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.4474, -94.6484)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 728503. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.