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EF1 tornado in Taylor County, Texas

Tornado May 18, 2019 · Taylor County, Texas

EF1

Rating

8.7 mi

Whole path

550 yd

Path width

$750K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Taylor County → Jones County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 550 yards (0.31 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

A National Weather Service survey team surveyed this tornado on June 13, and

found evidence of another tornado track. This EF-1 tornado began on the north side

of Abilene and tracked north northeast into Jones County. This twister tore the roof of a metal building, blew out windows and damaged an exterior wall on the north side of Abilene. The twister also ripped up a billboard and flipped over an eighteen wheeler. As the tornado continued to travel north northeast, it damaged or uprooted trees as it moved into Jones County. It tore off part of the roofs of two residences and damaged trees and outbuildings in Jones County just northwest of Fort Phantom Lake. This tornado was also videotaped on the north side of Abilene.

The wider storm

A highly sheared environment coupled with a very unstable airmass resulted in the development of strong tornadoes during the early morning hours of May 18. At least seven of the eight tornadoes damaged or destroyed several hundred homes across portions of West Central Texas. One of the supercells produced four long track strong tornadoes.

Began near Abilene (32.4910, -99.7372).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF3 Runnels County EF3 Runnels County EF3 Coleman County EF2 Schleicher County EF2 Tom Green County EF2 Taylor County EFU McCulloch County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 827232. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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