Three tornadoes formed Sunday night as a band of severe storms moved through the region, the National Weather Service’s Fort Worth office reported.
Sunday night’s thunderstorms knocked out power to tens of thousands of people across North Texas, brought winds over 50 miles per hour and dropped 1-3 inches of rain. The storms, while strong, were not quite as intense as some forecasts originally suggested.
In Grayson and Fannin counties, near the Texas-Oklahoma border, a survey team from the weather service found damage indicating three EF-1 tornadoes touched down.
The first formed at about 9:40 p.m. in Grayson County, southwest of Sherman along Rockport Road. It traveled on a southeast path for about four miles, damaging or uprooting dozens of trees. It also damaged a couple of barns and rolled a trailer on its side before lifting.
The other two tornadoes formed in Fannin County.
Just a few minutes later, a tornado touched down 1.5 miles south of the Red River and west of Ravenna. It traveled southeast, initially causing minor damage to trees and a home, before intensifying. It then caused more significant tree damage, heavily damaged a barn and caused minor exterior damage to two homes, the weather service reported.
It reached its peak intensity at 105 miles per hour and completely destroyed a mobile home, snapped or uprooted dozens of trees and heavily damaged a barn and another mobile home. Its path was observed to be three miles long.
The same storm then produced another tornado that touched down two miles south of Ravenna. As it continued southeast, it damaged many trees and a few outbuildings, as well as lifting a silo and blowing it 350 yards.
The tornado then entered Bonham, where it blew down hundreds of trees in the northwest part of the city. Three homes suffered heavy wind damage, a church lost its steeple and another church lost part of an exterior wall. It also flattened a scoreboard and lifted part of the roof off of Finley Oates Elementary School. The tornado dissipated into a large downburst around Main Street.
Several tornadoes were also observed in mid-May to the west of Fort Worth.