Tornadoes · United States · New Mexico · 1965

F0 tornado, Quay County, New Mexico, June 25, 1965

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Quay County on June 25, 1965, touching down at 4:00 PM GMT-6 and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mph

    Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 mph

    Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

  7. Unrated

    The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
June 25, 1965
Touchdown
4:00 PM GMT-6 (22:00 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Quay County
Touchdown point
35.220, -103.650
Record number
602

The air that afternoon

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 12:00Z

10.0 hours before the tornado, 177 km from the path. June 25, 1965.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 12:00Z on 1965-06-25Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 129 joules per kilogram, CIN -54, lifted condensation level 1125 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Amarillo Airport, TX at 12:00Z on 1965-06-25The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 81 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 43 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
129 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-54 J/kg
Surface CAPE
37 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1125 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
43 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
81 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
265 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.7
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 00:00Z

2.0 hours after it, 177 km from the path. June 26, 1965.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 00:00Z on 1965-06-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 770 joules per kilogram, CIN -72, lifted condensation level 1098 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Amarillo Airport, TX at 00:00Z on 1965-06-26The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 136 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 53 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
770 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-72 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1906 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1098 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
53 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
136 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
241 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
5.7
0-3 km lapse rate
6.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Tucumcari Municipal (TCC), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:00 UTC645610° 11 kt1006.8

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1965 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 25, 1965

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 251:40 PM GMT-6F0Chaves, NM0.110
June 253:10 PM GMT-6F0Tooele, UT0.110
June 256:14 PM GMT-5F0Nuckolls, NE0.110
June 256:25 PM GMT-5F0Barnes, ND0.110
June 256:10 PM GMT-6F2Roosevelt, NM10.510
June 258:00 PM GMT-5F0Hutchinson, TX0.117
June 258:30 PM GMT-5F1Hockley, TX3.817
June 258:30 PM GMT-5F1Castro, TX13.910

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.