Tornado, Colfax
- When
- July 25, 2:25 PM MST to 2:30 PM MST
- Where
- Colfax County, Cimarron to 2 mi NE of Cimarron
- Rating
- F2
- Path length
- 2 mi
- Path width
- 50 yd
- Injuries
- 5 direct, 0 indirect
- Property damage
- $1.7 million
- Coordinates
- 36.500, -104.920
Tornado in New Mexico, July 25, 1996
A tornado destroyed 11 homes and 7 business in Cimarron. Another 43 structures were damaged.
Where it happened
Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.
- Tornadoes
- Tropical storms and surge
- Floods
- Wind
- Hail
- Winter weather
- Heat and drought
- Cold
- Fire, smoke and dust
- Marine and coastal
- Other
The toll
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 5
- Property damage
- $1.7 million
- Crop damage
- None recorded
- Events
- 1
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
What happened
The episode as NWS ABQ wrote it up.
A tornado destroyed 11 homes and 7 business in Cimarron. Another 43 structures were damaged. Among the building destroyed was the Post Office which was sliced by the air-borne frame of a mobile home. Of the 5 injuries, 2 were serious, requiring hospitalization. All injuries occurred in mobile homes or portable buildings without permanent foundations. A funnel cloud, which went unreported, was observed by deputies for about 20 minutes. The tornado developed as convection moved over a horizontal shear axis created by southeast surface winds and northwest winds aloft above the foothills located just northwest of Cimarron.
The radar
The Pueblo radar (KPUX), 227 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 21:23 UTC.
Event by event
1 tornado. Local standard time, as filed.
What these are
- Tornado
- A violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground and extending from a thunderstorm, filed with its path, width and Fujita or Enhanced Fujita rating from the damage survey.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
The same day elsewhere
- Hail in Nebraska, July 25, 1996
- Hail in Nebraska, July 25, 1996
- Hail in Nebraska, July 25, 1996
- Tornado in North Carolina, July 25, 1996
- Hail in Nebraska, July 25, 1996
- Hail in Nebraska, July 25, 1996
- Damaging Wind in Nebraska, July 25, 1996
- Damaging Wind in Texas, July 25, 1996
- Lightning Strike in Virginia, July 25, 1996
- Tornado in Kansas, July 25, 1996
- Damaging Wind in Virginia, July 25, 1996
- Damaging Wind in Texas, July 25, 1996
More
Every storm in New Mexico in 1996Every state in 1996This day in weather historyThe tornado archive for New Mexico, 1996Warnings in New Mexico, July 1996
Sources
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5568323.