EF0 tornado, Wagon Mound, New Mexico, August 9, 2017

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

August 9, 2017

Touchdown

5:50 PM MDT (23:50 UTC)

Lifted

5:51 PM MDT (23:51 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Mora County

Touchdown point

35.859, -104.661

Lift-off point

35.857, -104.656

Record number

1708091750-01

Deep moisture and instability over eastern New Mexico combined with northwest flow aloft to produce scattered strong to severe thunderstorms over the east-central and northeast plains. Several clusters of thunderstorms developed by mid afternoon along the east slopes of the central mountain chain then moved quickly southeastward. A severe thunderstorm that developed over Las Vegas produced damaging baseball size hail mainly over the southeastern quadrant of town. Severe damage was reported to many vehicles. Several other storms that moved across Harding, Mora, and San Miguel counties produced golf ball to baseball size hail. Funnel clouds also accompanied the storms in Las Vegas and near Grenville. Heavy rainfall amounts up to nearly three inches were reported with several storms. A pilot flying from Texas to New Mexico fatally crashed near Trujillo in San Miguel County during the active weather.

A KRQE viewer sent in a picture of a small tornado southeast of Wagon Mound. No damage was reported.

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.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:03 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.

Las Vegas Municipal (LVS), 49 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Cannon AFB radar (KFDX), 166 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:49 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 2017 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

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.