F0 tornado, Roswell to Dexter, New Mexico, April 8, 2004

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

April 8, 2004

Touchdown

3:57 PM MDT (21:57 UTC)

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Chaves County

Touchdown point

33.230, -104.680

Lift-off point

33.230, -104.680

Record number

737

An isolated thunderstorm formed over extreme southeast Lincoln County and then moved east through south central Chaves County producing a string of weak tornadoes and then collapsing with a burst of baseball size hail. A series of relatively brief and weak tornadoes were observed as the storm passed from about 24 miles southwest of Roswell to 6 miles south of Roswell. These intermittent tornadoes were located over open range or rural and unpopulated sections of Chaves County, but were observed from long distance by FAA controllers at the Roswell Airport and by Skywarn amateur radio spotters. The storm overturned one mobile home near the Midway community. A witness report conflicted with debris patterns so it was uncertain whether this damage was caused by straight line winds or a dissipating tornado. The occupant had abandoned the mobile home and sought safe shelter elsewhere after hearing one of the earlier tornado warnings.

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

34 minutes of warning. NWS ABQ issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:23 UTC, 34 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 UTC.

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 19:57 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 2004 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.