2020 Belton -Temple Texas Tornado (Hulkerine)

Date: April 3, 2020

Time: 5:02 pm

Max rating: EF5

The Belton-Temple tornado of 2020 was a large wedge tornado that struck the Belton-Temple area on April 3 2020. This tornado was the most powerful of a series of tornadoes that touched down across northern and Central Texas. Additional tornadoes were also confirmed in Oklahoma and western Arkansas. On April 1st, the storm prediction center placed a high risk for Central and north Texas and a moderate risk for Oklahoma and western Arkansas. Earlier in the day a few EF0 and EF1 tornadoes touched down in north Texas and Oklahoma. At around 4:45 pm CST a powerful supercell was located over Killeen, TX moving east at 50 MPH. Doppler radar detected rotation in this supercell prompting the national weather service in Fort Worth to issue a tornado warning for Bell county. At 4:58 pm CST a tornado touched down near Nolanville moving east at 25 MPH. This tornado was weak at the time but rapidly intensified. By 5:02 PM CDT the tornado had become powerful with wind speeds of 205 MPH. As this tornado was fast approaching Belton the national weather service declared a tornado Emergency for Belton and Temple. This tornado riped through Northern Belton leaving catastrophic damage behind and killing 14 people. This tornado arrived in Temple at around 5:10 pm CDT. This tornado would leave catastrophic damage behind in Temple killing an additional 12 people. The tornado then continued east for another 10 miles before dissipitating east of Ratibor at around 5:17 pm CDT. This tornado was responsible for 5.1 billion dollars in damage and left the cities of Belton and Temple in complete rubble. In the following days this Tornado would receive a EF5 rating from the national weather service