F0 tornado, Ragland, New Mexico, May 30, 2001

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 30, 2001

Touchdown

3:25 PM MDT (21:25 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Quay County

Touchdown point

34.820, -103.730

Lift-off point

34.820, -103.730

Record number

122

Thunderstorms formed along the east slope of the Sangre de Cristo in western Colfax and Mora Counties and then intensified into low precipitating supercells that yielded copious amounts of small hail across Harding and Union Counties, and finally golfball to baseball hail, plus funnel clouds and at least one brief gustnado or ground based spin-up over Quay County. Snow plows were called out near Grenville in Union County to remove dime size hail which clogged Highway 64/87 with 5-8 inches of ice. The heavier hail stayed mainly over open rangeland of Quay County, but later pounded storm chase vehicles along I-40 near the border with Texas. Storms began to bow as the passed into Curry County. Gusts of 60 to 80 mph just missed the main sections of Clovis, but scattered reports of downed trees and power lines were received from the city.

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:05 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.

NWS Albuquerque, NM wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at May 30, 3:25 PM MDT, 0 minutes earlier.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ALBUQUERQUE NM
325 PM MDT WED MAY 30 2001

ONGOING SVR WEATHER OVER ERN ZONES PRECLUDES A LENGTHY
DISCUSSION.  OUTFLOW FROM CONVECTION OVER THE EAST COUPLED WITH
A COOL FRONT PROGGED TO PUSH THRU THE ERN PLAINS WILL BRING THE
POSSIBILITY OF LOCAL CANYON WINDS INTO THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY LATER
THIS EVENING.  UPSLOPE CONDITIONS THU BRING ANOTHER CHC OF CONVCTN
CNTRL MTNS AND E AND ALSO ALONG THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE.  UPR RDG
PRESENTLY OVER THE W COAST WL SHIFT E TO AZ/NM BORDER FRI.
THIS SHUD CAP MOST CNVCTN W.  HEIGHTS A LTL LOWER OVR THE E UNDER
NW FLO AND CONT TO MENTION OF POPS E.  UPR TROF MOVES ONSHORE AND
GRADUALLY WEARS DOWN THE RDG.  ALSO S/WV RIDG ACRS THE NRN ROCKIES
WILL RESULT IN A MORE ZNL PATTERN FOR SUN AND MON WITH MIXG AFTN
BREEZES. 44

ABQ UU 057/087 057/089 057 44000
SAF UU 049/081 050/082 048 44-11
TCC BB 057/078 055/083 058 44312

.ABQ...SEVERE TSTORM WATCH NE AND EAST CENTRAL NM TIL 7 PM MDT.

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.

Tucumcari Municipal (TCC), 42 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.