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Jarrell tornado

F5 tornado
View of the Jarrell tornado as it moved near the Double Creek Estates area
Duration	13 minutes
Max. rating1	F5 tornado
Fatalities	27 fatalities, 12 injuries
Damage	$40.1 million
1Most severe tornado damage; see Fujita scale

Parts of Jarrell, Texas, were struck by an extremely powerful F5 tornado on the afternoon of May 27. The tornado destroyed approximately 10 percent of the homes in Jarrell; at the time, the city had a population of about 450 people and had been previously struck by tornadoes in 1987 and 1989. Hardest-hit was the Double Creek Estates subdivision west of downtown Jarrell. The 1997 Jarrell tornado was the first and only known occurrence of an F5 tornado in Williamson County. It was also the deadliest tornado in Texas since the 1987 Saragosa tornado. The thunderstorm that spawned the Jarrell tornado began west of Temple along the flanking line of another thunderstorm earlier in the afternoon of May 27. The storm produced several tornadoes in Bell County, including the F3 tornado that impacted communities along Lake Belton. Weather radar observed a strengthening mesocyclone within the thunderstorm, with the speed of rotation rising above 40 kn (46 mph; 74 km/h). As the storm moved into Williamson County, it produced two short-lived F2 tornadoes north of Jarrell at 3:25 p.m. and 3:35 p.m.; the latter of the two was a multiple-vortex tornado and lifted at 3:39 p.m. The Austin/San Antonio National Weather Service forecast office issued a tornado warning for Williamson County at 3:30 p.m. in response to the storm's approach; the warning was put into effect for one hour. This was the first tornado warning of the day issued for the office's warning area and warned that "the city of Jarrell is in the path of this storm." Local warning sirens went off about 10–12 minutes before the tornado struck.

The precise start of the Jarrell tornado was difficult to pinpoint. The most prominent and destructive part of the tornado's evolution was preceded by the apparition of short-lived, small, and rope-like funnel clouds. These may have been separate tornadoes or simply an earlier part of the Jarrell tornado's evolution. An aerial survey conducted by the Birmingham, Alabama, office of the National Weather Service included the damage caused by the earlier F2 tornadoes—mostly to trees and roads—as part of the overall Jarrell tornado path. Some reports also include the F1 tornado near Prairie Dell as an earlier continuation of the Jarrell tornado. The final, unambiguous apparition of the Jarrell tornado began as a narrow and rope-shaped funnel when it touched down at 3:40 p.m with witnesses and photo evidence showing that the tornado had the appearance of a "dead man walking". just within the Williamson County line 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Jarrell. Like the two F3 tornadoes earlier in the day, it developed along the gust front produced by its parent thunderstorm. This mechanism is typical of tornadogenesis not associated with supercell thunderstorms. Traffic along Interstate 35 came to a stop as the tornado descended nearby. The Texas Highway Patrol also stopped traffic on both sides of the interstate under the expectation that the tornado would cross the highway; it ultimately moved parallel to Interstate 35. Tracking south-southwest, the tornado quickly intensified and grew to a 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) in width, changing from its initial thin and white appearance to a blue and black color. F5 tornado damage was identified early in the tornado's path. Its intense winds scoured the ground and stripped pavement from roads. The tornado tore 525 feet (160 m) of asphalt as it crossed County Roads 308, 305, and 307; the thickness of the asphalt pavement was roughly 0.8 inches (20 mm). A culvert plant at the corner of Country Roads 305 and 307 collapsed. Nearby, a similar plant and a mobile home sustained some damage, with the latter struck by a 2×4 piece of lumber. The occupants of a mobile home 500 feet (150 m) north-northwest of the culvert plant fled to a frame house that the tornado later struck; the evacuees were killed while the mobile home sustained only minor damage. Some of the most extreme damage at this location was inflicted to a small metal-framed recycling plant that was obliterated, with little left of the structure besides a few twisted structural beams.

The Double Creek Estates subdivision was pulverized by the tornado, with many homes swept off their foundations and disintegrated. This photograph shows one remaining foundation with plumbing pulled out of the concrete.

The tornado then slowly entered the Double Creek Estates subdivision where it exacted its most catastrophic impacts. Concurrently, the tornado expanded further to its maximum width of 3⁄4 mile (1.2 km). Eyewitnesses indicated that the tornado's movement slowed to around 5–10 mph (8.0–16.1 km/h) as it entered the neighborhood; this may have contributed to the resulting extreme destruction. The tornado destroyed the first home it encountered at the northwestern corner of the subdivision; a clock recovered from the remaining debris was stopped at 3:48 p.m., presumably marking the time the tornado entered the community. Much of the neighborhood was completely swept away with little debris remaining, with what was left being reduced to small and unrecognizable fragments that were dispersed over a wide area. The lack of large items that were recovered, and the granularity of the debris was indicative of the sheer strength of the tornado. Due to the tornado's slow movement, homes near the center of its path experienced tornadic winds for approximately three minutes. The mostly wooden-framed residences, some well-built and anchored, were completely obliterated and swept away, leaving behind concrete slab foundations swept clean of all debris. In some cases, parts of outbuilding and house foundations themselves in the subdivision were scoured away, and several were found missing all of their sill plates that connected the wood-frame homes to the foundations. Pieces of debris were found deposited in fields miles away from the subdivision, and extreme ground scouring occurred, reducing grassy fields into wide expanses of mud in the most severely affected areas. In some cases the ground was scoured out to a depth of 18 inches (46 cm). Vehicles in the neighborhood were tossed and mangled beyond recognition; at least six were found flattened in open areas and coated with mud and grass. Some were thrown as far as a 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) away, and others were torn into multiple pieces of unrecognizable metal. Trees in the neighborhood were completely denuded and stripped entirely clean of all bark as well, including one that was found with an electrical cord impaled through the trunk.

All 27 fatalities associated with the Jarrell tornado occurred at Double Creek Estates, which at the time consisted of 131 residents living in 38 single-family homes and several mobile homes. Entire families were killed at Double Creek, including all five members of the Igo Family, all four members of the Moehring family, and all three members of the Smith family. Bodily remains were later found at 30 locations, and the physical trauma inflicted to some of the tornado victims was so extreme, that first responders reportedly had difficulty distinguishing human remains from the remains of animals at the site. Most of the deaths were attributed in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report to multiple trauma, though one death was attributed to asphyxia. The high intensity of the Jarrell tornado left those in its path with little recourse; most homes in Double Creek Estates were built on cement slab foundations and few had a basement or any form of storm shelter; nineteen people sought refuge in a single storm cellar. Some residents who followed prescribed safety measures nonetheless perished. One survivor holed up in a bathtub and was flung several hundred feet from her house onto a road. The walls of some homes along the periphery of the tornado path remained intact, protecting some of those who survived the tornado. Others chose to evacuate ahead of the approaching tornado. Forty structures were obliterated in Double Creek Estates. Three businesses adjacent to Double Creek Estates were also destroyed. In total, the tornado dealt $10–20 million in damage to the neighborhood. Around 300 cattle grazing in a nearby pasture were killed and some were found 0.25 miles (0.40 km) away. Hundreds of cattle were also dismembered and a few cows were also skinned by the tornado.

The tornado turned slightly towards the south-southwest after traversing Double Creek Estates. The damage in these outlying areas was somewhat scattershot; in one case, a mobile home suffered only minor damage while an adjacent house lost half of its roof. Metal buildings were unroofed along County Road 305 south of Jarrell. The road's guardrail was impaled by wooden planks thrown by the strong winds. The tornado then again crossed County Road 305 and entered a forest of cedar trees. Some of the damage to the trees suggested that the tornado may have been a multiple-vortex tornado, which was documented by Scott Beckwith, receiving a nickname as a “dead man walking”. Shortly after entering this forested area, the path of damage left behind by the tornado ended abruptly, with the National Centers for Environmental Information indicating that it lifted at 3:53 p.m. after remaining on the ground for 13 minutes and 5.1 miles (8.2 km). Other government accounts of the tornado list a total path length of 7.6 miles (12.2 km) after incorporating the preceding tornadoes north of Jarrell and near Prairie Dell. Between May 29 and June 1, the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research carried out aerial and ground surveys of the tornadic damage in Texas in coordination with the Texas Wing Civil Air Patrol. The Jarrell tornado damage was classified as F5 severity throughout most of the tornado's path. However, a critique of the Fujita scale published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology suggested that winds between 158–206 mph (254–332 km/h), corresponding to an F3 rating on the scale, were sufficient to explain the damage wrought by the Jarrell tornado. The critique noted that some of the homes at Double Creek Estates, although built within the preceding 15 years, exhibited structural weaknesses in their design such as the lack of anchor bolts and steel straps in their foundations. Approximately $40 million in damage was inflicted upon property with another $100,000 inflicted upon crops. Twelve people were injured by the storm in addition to the twenty-seven killed.

Due to the unusual southwestward motion of the thunderstorm that caused the tornado, the sequence of weather events experienced by those affected was in the opposite order of typical tornadic events: the tornado arrived first, followed by the hail, wind, and rain of the parent thunderstorm. Despite the violence of the tornado and the presence of its associated mesocyclone aloft, the thunderstorm did not exhibit a distinct hook echo on weather radar typically associated with such tornadoes. This may have also been caused by the unusual southwestward motion of the thunderstorm, resulting in the tornado's placement in an atypical position relative to the thunderstorm's motion.