Brazos Valley Tornado Outbreak

Yesterday was one of the most active mornings that the Brazos Valley has seen in quite some time. Early in the morning, the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma issued a Tornado Watch for the entire viewing area for the potential of tornadic thunderstorms. Approximately 4:30am is when the first Tornado Warning was issued from the National Weather Service in Robertson and Milam counties. From that point on many storms entered the Brazos Valley and the situation became violent. A multitude of Tornado Warnings were issued in Burleson, Washington, Brazos, Grimes and Madison counties.

From 4:30am to 9am was when the most destructive storms came though. The following is a radar image from 7:30am yesterday morning.

Note how we did not have any isolated supercells that typically bring us tornadoes. We had a broad line of storms with destructive winds on its front side. This is known as a bow echo. The line from Leon county to Washington county bows out. At the apex of the bow, which in this image is over Brenham, is where the strongest winds are located. Reports showed gusts to 70 mph, but I would not be surprised if there were gusts near 85mph. Nonetheless, this was a very electric storm that packed a punch. In addition, within this thick line of destructive storms were mini rotations that prompted the Tornado Warnings.

Throughout the morning, from what I could glean on the radar imagery, there could have been as many as 6 weak tornadoes in our area. The National Weather Service needs to survey the damage in each warned area before concluding a tornado touched down. At the moment, the storm over Brenham has been officially named tornadic. The tornado was ranked as an EF-0 with a 50 yard width, and a 2.5 mile path. An EF-0 is the weakest class on the Enhanced Fujita scale, but no matter what, this tornado caused a fair amount of damage. The following image indicates the rest of the scale and how high winds need to be for each classification.

However, there were many other possible tornadoes that need to be surveyed, and the National Weather Service should come out with that report tonight. Besides the Brenham tornado, there were storms that were quite concerning.

The possible tornado that originated in Somerville and ripped though Snook, College Station, and central Grimes County. On radar, it looked like this possible tornado was on the ground for quite some time. Again, this is not official yet. Another storm looked impressive on radar in eastern Washington County, that passed just to the south of Navasota.

NEW: Perliminary reports indicate that the Burleson County storm produced an EF-1 Tornado around Deanville and south of Caldwell. Also, two brief EF-0 tornadoes touched down around Huntsville. Finally, just in from the National Weather Service, a tornado was confirmed in Madison County, and is classified as an EF-0.


Other storms could have dropped weak tornadoes in Grimes and Madison counties as the following image indicates.

Interesting to note that in Madisonville, there was a report of an 18-wheeler on I-45 that was blown over due to the wind.

Overall, there were no injuries reported and a well needed soaking of rain helped to put a slight dent into the long term drought. What a morning we had, but all is clear. The weather the next several days will be great with a healthy warm up next week.

Thank you to everyone that stuck with KAGS-HD for the entire event. We appreciate each and every viewer and we will always keep you safe before, during and after the storm.

For more weather information you can log onto facebook: www.facebook.com/KAGSweatther and our twitter page: @KAGSweather.