2016 Gainesville tornado

the 2016 Gainesville tornado was a very deadly EF3 wedge that effected Gainesville, Texas during the nighttime hours of March 2, 2016...the tornado received little confirmation until it was already a possible EF4...the tornado was one of the deadliest EF3's on record...killing almost 60 people, 56 to be exact...39 of those came from Gainesville...2 of them occurred in the Walmart Distribution Center of Sanger...15 other deaths occurred in Valley View.

Meteorological Synopsis
On March 2 warm air was coming out of the Gulf of Mexico and a stationary front was coming in from the west of Gainesville leaving instability behind across most of Texas...the SPC issued a high risk with a 45% + hatched threat of tornadoes across all of eastern and central Texas, at 1647Z (11:47AM EST) PDS Tornado Watch 176 was issued with a ">95%" of all hazards for the DFW and Gainesville areas...the first strong/violent tornadoes of the day were reported between 1950 and 2100 across areas east of Gainesville...at 0059 a tornado warning was issued on a storm south of Sanger, Texas with 15-minutes lead time, the reason why this tornado was so deadly was because the storm was generating little to no lightning, leaving behind almost any way of confirming a tornado...at 0114Z a small EF0 touched down south of Sanger...the tornado rapidly intensified to a EF2 by 0120Z, and struck Sanger as a middle EF3 blowing down the walls of many buildings...the tornado moved over the Walmart Distribution Center of Sanger, Texas obliterating it and killing 2 employees there...by 0130Z (8:30PM EST) the storm still had no spotter confirmation, but the warning did say "This storm has had a past of producing a possibly violent tornado in the town of Sanger, where extreme damage was reported." the tornado struck Valley View, Texas at 0135Z as a high-end EF3 killing 15 people and injuring 101, by 0145Z the tornado hit Gainesville, TX as a high-end EF3 killing 39 people...and injuring 337, the other injuries were from Sanger...the tornado warning became PDS as it was over Gainesville and received a spotter confirmation too, only 11 minutes after the tornado hit Gainesville it lifted.

Rating disputes
The tornado was originally rated EF5 due to the extreme damage at the Walmart Distribution Center, but it was downgraded to a EF4 a few days later...and then eventually downgraded in 2018 to a EF3. the tornado is still extremely disputed for EF4 and EF5.

Other tornadoes
Other violent tornadoes struck northern Texas that night, including a EF4 over the eastern part of Dallas...a EF4 over several smaller towns, another EF4 that went to the east of Commerce and a very-high end EF3 that went to the east of Wichita Falls. 146 tornadoes touched down in total...including 42 strong and 3 violent, making it one of the worst Texas tornado outbreaks in history.