EF0 tornado, Milnesand, New Mexico, March 23, 2007

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

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

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF0

Date

March 23, 2007

Touchdown

6:05 PM MDT (00:05 UTC)

Lifted

6:08 PM MDT (00:08 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

70 yards (64 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Roosevelt County

Touchdown point

33.637, -103.347

Lift-off point

33.629, -103.343

Record number

0703231805-01

An unusually early and intense outbreak of severe storms with large hail and tornadoes occurred across east central and southeast New Mexico during the afternoon and evening of the 23rd. The average date for isolated first reports of damaging hail over the past 20 years has been March 24th with the location typically confined to far southeast New Mexico. The March 23rd 2007 episode produced a number of large hail events from Roswell to Tucumcari and peaked with multiple tornadoes from near Tatum north to Clovis and northeast of Tucumcari. A tornado at Clovis resulted in the death of two elderly citizens, the first tornado fatalities in New Mexico since October of 1974. The episode was characterized by a slow moving upper level low that produced strong speed shear but nearly uniform southerly directional flow aloft across the eastern and southeastern sections of the state. Storms with large hail developed first during early and mid afternoon from near Roswell north to Tucumcari. Towards late afternoon and early evening as storms migrated north northeast they encountered an increasing but shallow easterly surface flow that enhanced low level shear resulting in brief but shallow tornadoes. Multiple small but elevated vortices were observed circulating around well defined wall clouds with occasional spin downs into brief tornadoes.

Small short lived tornado reported over the open rangeland southwest of Milnesand. Golfball size hail reported in the village. Damage limited to series of downed power poles and electric lines.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS ABQ issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:42 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:20 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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 Cannon AFB radar (KFDX), 114 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:05 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

17 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.