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EF0 tornado in Kaufman County, Texas

Tornado October 20, 2019 · Kaufman County, Texas

EF0
Rating
0.1 mi
Path length
50 yd
Path width
$50K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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 tornado briefly formed approximately 5 miles north of the City of Kaufman, partially removing a portion of metal roofing from a single-family residence. A large section of this roofing was blown back toward the southwest, into a powerline. A nearby power pole was also partially snapped. The tornado dissipated shortly after impacting this residence.

The wider storm

Thunderstorms erupted across the DFW Metroplex as a strong upper level system and a cold front impacted the region on the evening of October 20 through the early morning hours of October 21st. A few storms developed ahead of the approaching cold front in the late evening hours of the 20th, producing tornadoes in Dallas and surrounding areas. Additional storms formed a squall line along the cold front, producing a large swath of damaging winds across North and Central Texas overnight into the early hours of October 21st. A total of 10 tornadoes were identified by NWS Survey teams, occurring both within the storms ahead of the cold front, and embedded within the squall line. The strongest of these tornadoes was an EF-3 that stretched almost 16 miles across the northern portions of Dallas County. Following on the heels of that tornado, an EF-2 tracked about 2.5 miles through Garland in Dallas County. The remaining count of tornadoes included 4 EF-1s and 4 EF-0s. Miraculously, no one was killed or significantly injured in any of the tornadoes! The total estimated cost of insured damage for all the tornadoes alone is over $2 billion, which the Insurance Council of Texas claims is the most costly tornado event in the state's history. Of the straight line wind damage, the most severe was located in Farmersville in Collin Co where a mobile home was rolled and destroyed. Three people were injured in the home. Over a dozen other manufactured homes in the same area were damaged, too.

Began near Kaufman Flying G Arp (32.6661, -96.3241).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 856506. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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