Tornadoes · United States · New Mexico · 1969

F0 tornado, Curry County, New Mexico, May 5, 1969

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Curry County on May 5, 1969, touching down at 9:00 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
May 5, 1969
Touchdown
9:00 PM GMT-6 (03:00 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Curry County
Touchdown point
34.420, -103.570
Record number
110

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), 00:00Z

3.0 hours before the tornado, 193 km from the path. May 6, 1969.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 00:00Z on 1969-05-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 70 joules per kilogram, CIN -51, lifted condensation level 1428 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 1969-05-06The 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 -8 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 48 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
70 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-51 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1428 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
48 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-8 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
41 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

9.0 hours after it, 193 km from the path. May 6, 1969.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 12:00Z on 1969-05-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 86 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 484 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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 1969-05-06The 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 -104 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 47 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
86 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
182 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
484 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
47 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
32 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-104 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-28 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1969 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 5, 1969

14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 511:34 AM GMT-5F0Harris, TX0.117
May 511:45 AM GMT-5F1, PR1.5101$50,000 to $500,000
May 53:57 PM GMT-5F0Andrews, TX4.1100
May 54:00 PM GMT-5F0Andrews, TX0.110
May 54:00 PM GMT-5F0Andrews, TX2.060
May 55:45 PM GMT-5F0Martin, TX0.517$500 to $5,000
May 55:45 PM GMT-5F0Dawson, TX0.550
May 55:45 PM GMT-5F0Dawson, TX1.050
May 55:40 PM GMT-6F0Douglas, CO0.110
May 57:35 PM GMT-5F1Anderson, KS2.010$500 to $5,000
May 57:00 PM GMT-6F0Roosevelt, NM5.0867
May 58:00 PM GMT-5F2Lynn, TX4.710$500 to $5,000
May 510:05 PM GMT-5F0Yoakum, TX0.310
May 512:50 AM GMT-5F0Cochran, TX0.110

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.