F0 tornado, Hobbs, New Mexico, May 28, 1997

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.

Rating

F0

Date

May 28, 1997

Touchdown

7:55 PM MDT (01:55 UTC)

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Lea County

Touchdown point

32.700, -103.200

Lift-off point

32.700, -103.200

Record number

384

The storms from this day formed in a northwest flow with a Lifted Index in the -8 to -10 range. Afternoon temperatures were in the mid 80s with dew points in the upper 50s. The most notable feature of this day was the strong directional shear with low-level winds from the ESE at about 20 kt through the lowest 3000 feet and mid to upper-level winds from the northwest at over 40 kt. A weak layer of winds at about 7-10k ft MSL may have kept the environment from producing more (and stronger) supercells.

Damage occurred just west of the Hobbs city limit where RFD and tornadic winds were superimposed. The damage included a 15x20 ft wooden roof taken off an old shed, parts of two other roofs damaged, an awning from a trailer destroyed, a trailer pushed 3-4 feet off its foundation, and two utility poles downed. The tornado was sighted, and a faint trail of it could be traced in the debris pattern upon inspection, but RFD winds occurred in the area as well with much of the debris blown in a divergent pattern.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:55 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

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