Power Outage in Happy, TX

This is the beginning of an eventual wide and long tracked tornado that eventually moved into Randall County (WFO Amarillo). The tornado began on ranch land west-southwest of Happy and damaged mainly power poles and a few structures as it moved northeast.

This EF-0 tornado was video recorded by storm chasers over rural areas of Swisher County east of Happy. The only damage observed were two broken power poles near the intersection of County Road B and County Road 16. This tornado crossed into Randall|County, where it was surveyed by WFO Amarillo.

Along with very large hail, damaging rear flank downdraft winds from a high precipitation supercell struck many areas in northern Swisher County. A Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet northeast of Tulia measured a wind gust to 67 mph at 1755 CST. Much of the monetary damage to buildings, vehicles and winter wheat was from the combination of wind and very large hail, although some power lines were downed in the town of Happy as reported by Fire Department officials. The majority of property losses are included in the hail event entry for Swisher County.

Law enforcement officials reported numerous downed power poles along and near Interstate 27, while storm chasers measured a 69 mph wind gust northwest of Tulia.

The KVII-TV Schoolnet recorded a thunderstorm wind gust of 59 mph at 18:41 CST. No damage was reported. The parent complex of thunderstorms continued to intermittently produce damaging winds as it propagated south-southeastward over Swisher County. A post-storm survey by Texas Tech University West Texas Mesonet meteorologists discovered several snapped wooden power poles along U.S. Highway 87 north of Kress.

Fire department reported power lines down.

A large tornado developed west of town. It moved eastward across open country and thus the storm survey team, made up of both NWS personnel and a Texas Tech University wind engineer, could only find damage to power poles and to fence posts. Based on storm chaser video, the large tornado weakened and finally dissipated just west of Happy.

The tornado that went through Happy dissipated over southern Randall County. Shortly after this dissipation, the same supercell produced another tornado just to the south of the previous tornado's track. This tornado was reported by a storm chaser. An NWS storm survey team found snapped power poles and downed power lines on county roads just south of Farm-to-Market Road 1075, consistent with this report.