Southeast Texas was ravaged by six tornadoes over just a few days last week, causing both injuries and a fatality. The closest of those was just 25 miles away, but Polk County did receive storms with heavy rain from the system.
Jeff Evans is the National Weather Service Meteorologist-in-Charge for the Houston/Galveston office and spoke to Polk County Publishing Company about the recent outbreak.
“It is just the way the pattern has set up,” Evans said. “It is not uncommon for us to get winter tornadoes, especially here on the Gulf Coast. With the Gulf of Mexico still really warm, really for the last few seasons relative to its normal, it is certainly adding a lot more fuel to these fronts as they come through.”
Evans said it is not ordinary to have as many as Texas has experienced over the past few days, but tornado outbreaks have occurred in the past.
“This was a little unusual in that it was a multi-day event, culminating on Saturday. It was certainly a unique event, for sure. Typically, in the cool season, we’ll have a tornado outbreak, but then it is right ahead of a strong system and the system pushes the front out that shuts it all down. This was one where we had a number of systems, and the leading ones just didn’t get that front to scour out the atmosphere until the last one.”
The closest to Polk County was summarized as a large tornado with an estimated peak wind of 140 miles per hour near its start in Porter Heights, according to the National Weather Service. It traveled over 10 miles with a width of 1,675 yards, ending in Splendora 25 minutes later.
The Gulf of Mexico is much of the cause. When warm, moist air from the gulf pushes north and clashes with cooler, drier air moving south, it creates a mix of unstable atmospheric conditions that typically spawns twisters.
Texas tops the list of states with the highest number of tornados, recording 9,731 since 1950. While no part of Texas is immune from tornadoes, areas of far West Texas, El Paso, and Central Texas see the lowest occurrences. Kansas and Oklahoma are next on the list, and each state and territory has experienced at least one since 1950, when the National Weather Service began documenting tornadoes.
Though not included in tornado alley like Dallas and Fort Worth, Houston has had the most tornadoes of major cities in the state. They are usually not among the strongest, and are the result of tropical systems, which are said to produce many weak twisters in a short period.
The last to come through Polk County was April of 2020, when a powerful EF-3 tornado (136-165 mph) killed three people and injured at least 20 others in Onalaska. It also destroyed dozens of houses and businesses. Since that time, Polk County has not experienced a tornado, though waterspouts have formed over Lake Livingston.
