San Antonio, TX Sees Damaging Tornadoes

On Sunday afternoon, a mid and upper level trough dug into the south-central US. This drew unseasonably high moisture values, and temperatures into the region. The SPC had outlined a severe threat in this region for a few days, but the threat didn’t look as great the day of the event.

Wind vectors in the atmosphere weren’t ideal, so tornadoes, and severe weather as a whole, didn’t seem too likely. The forcing was there, though, so thunderstorms were still likely. The predominant storm type became clusters of storms that conglomerated into larger complexes as they moved northeastward.

A long line of showers and thunderstorms continues to progress east across the area. pic.twitter.com/K1TFxroelB

— NWS San Antonio (@NWSSanAntonio) February 20, 2017

One of these complexes developed and rolled into the San Antonio, Texas region. A mesocyclone, which is an area of rotation within a thunderstorm, became embedded within the main line of storms itself, and this went on to produce significant damage in the city, including a straight line wind gust estimated to have winds between 118 mph and 138 mph.

Update: Two more tornadoes have been confirmed in Williamson Co. near Thrall. Both are preliminary ratings of EF2. Total count now 6. #txwx

— NWS San Antonio (@NWSSanAntonio) February 20, 2017

In addition to that, the NWS there found at least 6 tornadoes that touched down near the city itself, including two EF-2 tornadoes. Because the storm travelled near the radar on Sunday night, the NWS San Antonio pulled some of the radar images and put together an awesome graphic explaining some radar imagery.

Keep the folks that were affected by the storms in your thoughts and prayers as they clean up from the damage.