Tornadoes · United States · New Mexico · 2008

EF0 tornado, Canyoncito, New Mexico, August 17, 2008

This EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Santa Fe County on August 17, 2008, touching down at 4:40 PM MDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
August 17, 2008
Touchdown
4:40 PM MDT (22:40 UTC)
Lifted
4:41 PM MDT (22:41 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.6 miles (1.0 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Santa Fe County
Touchdown point
35.580, -105.840
Lift-off point
35.580, -105.829
Record number
0808171640-01

What the Weather Service recorded

An upper low over Colorado provided adequate wind shear and instability to produce a severe weather outbreak across central and eastern sections of New Mexico. Several of the storms became tornadic while others produced large hail, damaging winds and flooding rain.

A long lived supercell thunderstorm spawned a tornado that touched down briefly west of Glorieta.

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

The warnings

12 minutes of warning. NWS ABQ issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:28 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
19:14 UTC20:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningABQ
20:06 UTC21:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningABQ
22:00 UTC23:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningABQ
22:28 UTC00:00 UTCFlood AdvisoryABQ
22:28 UTC23:15 UTCTornado WarningABQ
23:09 UTC00:00 UTCTornado WarningABQ

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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 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.

Albuquerq/Krtlnd, NM (KABQ), 12:00Z

10.7 hours before the tornado, 91 km from the path. August 17, 2008.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Albuquerq/Krtlnd, NM at 12:00Z on 2008-08-17Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 45 joules per kilogram, CIN -40, lifted condensation level 716 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, Albuquerq/Krtlnd, NM at 12:00Z on 2008-08-17The 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 53 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 41 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
45 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-40 J/kg
Surface CAPE
129 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
716 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
41 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
8 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
53 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
92 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Albuquerq/Krtlnd, NM (KABQ), 00:00Z

1.3 hours after it, 91 km from the path. August 18, 2008.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Albuquerq/Krtlnd, NM at 00:00Z on 2008-08-18Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 29 joules per kilogram, CIN -108, lifted condensation level 2318 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, Albuquerq/Krtlnd, NM at 00:00Z on 2008-08-18The 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 22 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 43 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
29 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-108 J/kg
Surface CAPE
178 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2318 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
43 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
22 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
65 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
8.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Albuquerque radar (KABX), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:41 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.

What was reported nearby

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

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
22:17 UTCHAIL 0.755 N Santa FeSanta Fe, NMSANTA FE OPERA HOUSE.
22:40 UTCHAIL 12 W GlorietaSanta Fe, NM
22:41 UTCTORNADO4 W GlorietaSanta Fe, NM
22:50 UTCHAIL 0.88GlorietaSanta Fe, NM
00:10 UTCHAIL 0.754 Ssw VillanuevaSan Miguel, NM

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 17, 2008

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 175:06 PM MDTEF0Lincoln, CO0.150
August 176:48 PM MDTEF0Guadalupe, NM0.625
August 177:20 PM MDTEF0Guadalupe, NM0.325
August 177:40 PM MDTEF0De Baca, NM2.135

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.