NWS Lubbock

1970: After an outbreak of violent nighttime tornadoes on the Texas South Plains and Panhandle just over three weeks
earlier that claimed nearly two dozen lives, a devastating tornado struck Lubbock this night killing 26 persons. This
event coincidentally occurred on the 17th anniversary of the deadliest tornado in Texas state history (Waco). The Lubbock
tornado, actually the second of two that struck the city this night, touched down around 9:30 PM southwest of the downtown
and moved northeast causing terrible damage along its path until it lifted around the Lubbock Municipal Airport shortly
after 10 PM. At the airport, the edge of the tornado was believed to have passed approximately 3/4 of a mile south of the
Weather Bureau Office at which time a peak gust of 89 mph was measured by an anemometer. The tornado killed 26 people and
injured more than 1500 along its 8.5 mile track, while covering about 15 square miles of Lubbock. Dr. Theodore Fujita
later determined that all but one of the deaths (96%) occurred along the path of suction spots (also know as suction
swaths and suction marks). These suction spots, which create localized areas of increased damage, are created when
smaller-scale vortices develop and rotate around the larger parent tornado forming a multiple-vortex tornado. The tornado
caused extensive damage to the northeast side of Lubbock and resulted in approximately $250M worth of damage (in 1970
dollars), equivalent to about $1.41B in 2008. The tornado was rated an F5 on the Fujita Tornado Damage Scale, which is the
highest a tornado can be rated. No known photographs were taken of this nighttime tornado. This tornado is also the most
recent F5 that has directly struck the downtown of a major city. Despite only a total of three tornadoes occurring this
night (the first was small and brief eight miles north of Crosbyton at 8:00 PM that damaged a barn), this event is
evidence that large cities are not immune to violent tornadoes. Many Lubbock residents believed such an occurrence was not
possible. The thunderstorms that spawned the Lubbock tornadoes were unique in that they formed on a retreating dryline
after sunset. Typically, storm development is minimal as a dryline moves westward and the airmass stabilizes after sunset.
However, in this case the amount of warm and unstable air being drawn northwestward compensated for the lack of solar
heating and supported explosive convection. Similar scenarios have occurred since this event, most notably the devastating
F5 tornado in Greensburg, KS on May 4, 2007 that coincidentally occurred at a similar time of the night. The Lubbock
tornado served as a catalyst for Dr. Fujita to further develop his theory that some tornadoes contained more than one
vortex inside the prominent circulation (i.e. multiple vortices) and more importantly led to the his development of the
Fujita Tornado Damage Scale. This event also resulted in the establishment of the Wind Science and Engineering (WISE)
Research Center at TTU. In 2007, WISE saw their proposed Enhanced Fujita Tornado Damage Scale implemented nationwide by
the National Weather Service.