Draft:2023 Perryton Texas tornado

The Perryton Texas tornado was a large and violent EF3 which occurred on Thursday, June 15, 2023, and struck the community of Perryton causing widespread damage and ground scouring. Three people were killed during the deadly event along with One-hundred and forty four injuries, marking it the first deadliest tornado to hit Perryton.

Path of the tornado

During the evening of June 15, 2023, a line of storms with embedded supercells formed over portions of Kansasthrough Oklahoma and in parts of Texas panhandle. One supercell further down south began to rapidly increase in size over the Texas panhandle. Perryton, Texas is centered in the Texas panhandle, Perryton itself isn't known for its severe weather but that doesn't stop the occasional severe thunderstorms from occurring. Texas panhandle gets around 21 tornadoes annually and rarely are they ever an F5 - EF5. Texas is not shy of this as they produce the most tornadoes out of any U.S. state with roughly experiencing 137 tornadoes every year.

On June 15, 2023 a large upper level trough moved through portions of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas making the atmospheric conditions just right for severe weather to occur over these portions of the United States. One community in this path was Perryton Texas.

Around 5:06 PM a supercell thunderstorm produces a small but violent tornado near highway 143, the tornado eventually crossed over highway 143 rapidly intensifying to 140 mph as it moved towards Perryton at EF3 intensity. As the tornado entered Perryton it damaged a community of mobile homes before continuing towards the downtown area. There in the downtown area it caused several structural damage to several downtown shops reported by National Weather Service (NWS), as it moved more southeast the tornado hit a microwave tower where it was reported "Folded in half like a blanket" along with several retail stores along Ash street and Birch street. At this rate the tornado began to weaken into EF2 strength as it crossed over Cedar street, it damaged numerous structures and homes including a cell phone tower that resulted in telecommunication outages across Perryton. The tornado then tore down and ripped apart several empty fuel tanks across an industrial park along with pushing a heavy large tanker truck into a small pond along highway 143. The tornado continued down South damaging power poles along highway 377 before lifting in an open field near county road 20. The tornado had tracked down 6.39 miles according to NWS and was half a mile wide (880 yards).

Meteorological synopsis

Texas gets so many tornadoes due to warm moist air in the Gulf of Mexico moving north combining midway with cooler dry air from the north region. With this weird combination occurring this causes a low pressure system known as a Trough (meteorology) to form, because of the trough many violent thunderstorms and tornadic conditions occur within that specific trough. Perryton was one of the many communities inside the large trough that expanded throughout the panhandle of Texas that evening with over 93 tornadoes in total touching down across the U.S. with severe distraction of homes and businesses.

Weather outlook, June 15–16

That day alone many severe thunderstorms produced several tornadoes across Northwest Ohio, Southern Oklahoma and Northern Kansas. Causing several EFU - EF2's across these areas. More tornadoes touched down on June 16 in the southern and northeastern United States, including an unusual anticyclonic tornado in Mobile and Baldwin counties in Alabama, where the tornado itself was associated with the anticyclonic bookend vortex of a powerful mesoscale convective system. More tornadoes occurred on June 17 and 18, including another EF3 tornado near Louin, Mississippi that destroyed numerous homes and other buildings, killed one person, and injured twenty-five others. This outbreak sequence was unusual in the sense that it produced strong tornadoes in the Deep South in June, despite the region's peak tornado season being March through mid-May, along with the autumn months.

Downtown building in Perryton destroyed after EF3 tornado

Impact and casualties

Three people died in the direct contact with the tornado out of those three One-hundred and forty four people were injured causing devastation throughout the community according to NWS.