NWS Lubbock

2009: A significant severe weather outbreak occurred over West Texas from the mid-afternoon through the late evening
hours. Despite the occurrence of thirteen tornadoes across the South Plains region, most of the damage resulted from
destructive hail and heavy rainfall. Thunderstorms first developed over the northern South Plains around 1 PM. These early
afternoon storms initiated as supercells, but transitioned into a small-scale convective complex that produced copious
amounts of large hail and heavy rainfall. As the storms trained over the Interstate 27 corridor in Swisher County, a
significant hail accumulation and flood event resulted in some 50 vehicles becoming stalled and a prolonged closure of the
highway through the overnight hours. Additional storms developed during the mid to late afternoon hours over the central
South Plains. Two supercell thunderstorms impacted Lubbock County. One of these storms produced a destructive hail swath
through the city of Lubbock damaging some 3,000 homes and more than 1,100 vehicles totaling an estimated $40M in damages.
Meanwhile a second supercell storm over eastern Lubbock County produced a family of weak tornadoes along U.S. Highway 82
east of Idalou. Other supercell storms impacted portions of Garza and Kent Counties during the late afternoon and early
evening hours. These storms additionally produced damaging hail and brief tornadoes. By late evening, storm modes
transitioned toward broken convective complexes and multicell structures. An unstable low-level environment, however,
continued to be characterized by an increasingly enhanced veering of the wind fields. Thus, despite a transition toward
less discrete storm cells, the threat for tornadoes remained. Multiple small scale low-level circulations developed within
the evolving convective complexes and these circulations proved to be tornadic. An EF1 tornado damaged five structures and
downed power poles as it tracked nearly eight miles across northwestern Lubbock County and southwestern Hale County around
8 PM. Two additional EF1 tornadoes impacted the Abernathy and Roosevelt areas through the 9 PM hour. Meanwhile, similar
tornadic circulations developed within other storm complexes over portions of Dickens, Kent, and King Counties. Multiple
reports of tornadoes were received from rural areas around the Spur, Girard, and Guthrie vicinities but no damages
resulted. In all, an estimated $41.3M in damages and three injuries resulted from severe weather across the South Plains
region of West Texas on the 16th.