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EF1 tornado in Rusk County, Texas

Tornado March 18, 2008 · Rusk County, Texas

EF1

Rating

20.5 mi

Whole path

300 yd

Path width

$3.5M

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 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

An EF1 tornado touched down near the community of New London, Texas. Numerous trees and powerlines were downed and a building was damaged near the intersection of county road 108 and farm to market road 850. Damage was also witnessed to a home, a metal building and dozen of trees along Dill Road. Additional damage was noted along U.S. 259, 4 miles south of Kilgore, Texas where the tornado downed several trees and a metal building suffered damage.

The wider storm

A deep upper level low pressure system across northern Mexico into the Big Bend area of west Texas moved very slowly towards the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley during the afternoon of March 18th into the overnight hours. Convection developed along and north of the interstate 30 corridor of northeast Texas, southeast Oklahoma and southwest Arkansas with widespread flash flooding reported across portions of the region. Along with the flash flooding...severe thunderstorms produced tornadoes across portions of northeast Texas during the late evening hours of March 18th as well.

Began near New London (32.2539, -94.8925).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 85460. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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