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EF2 tornado in Nolan County, Texas

Tornado March 19, 2020 · Nolan County, Texas

EF2

Rating

10.9 mi

Whole path

425 yd

Path width

$2.0M

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 425 yards (0.24 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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 EF-2 tornado touched down in southeast Nolan County and continued into Taylor County. About 14.5 miles southeast of Sweetwater, drone footage provided by AES Wind Generation Plant showed the EF-2 tornado damaged a large windmill turbine and tore off other windmill blades. The twister also caused roof damage to a residence and knocked down some high powered transmission poles and power lines.

The wider storm

A cold front interacting with an upper level disturbance and plenty of moisture triggered a supercell just northwest of Throckmorton on March 17. Stormchasers videtoped a brief tornado touchdown just northwest of Throckmorton.

By the afternoon of March 18 into the early morning hours of March 19, a strong upper level low pressure system moved northeast across the Panhandle. Plenty of wind shear and instability interacted with a dryline, copious gulf moisture and triggered an isolated discrete supercell. This tornadic supercell produced at least three tornadoes from southeast Nolan County to Taylor, Jones and Shackelford Counties. Two of the tornadoes were EF-2 at times and did extension damage along its track across four counties.

Began near Nolan (32.3101, -100.2189).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF2 Jones County EF1 Taylor County EFU Throckmorton County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 880449. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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