Tornadoes · United States · New Mexico · 2017

EF0 tornado, Cuervo to Newkirk, New Mexico, May 21, 2017

From Cuervo to Newkirk, this EF0 tornado ran 2.2 miles across Guadalupe County on May 21, 2017, touching down at 6:29 PM MDT and reaching 50 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
May 21, 2017
Touchdown
6:29 PM MDT (00:29 UTC)
Lifted
6:38 PM MDT (00:38 UTC)
On the ground
9 minutes
Path length
2.2 miles (3.6 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Guadalupe County
Touchdown point
34.862, -104.250
Lift-off point
34.844, -104.218
Record number
1705211829-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Northwest flow aloft on the backside of a departing upper level trough combined with moist, unstable, low level southeasterly flow across eastern New Mexico to generate scattered strong to severe thunderstorms. The strongest thunderstorm moved southeast through Guadalupe County into far southwestern Quay County during the early evening hours. Spotters observed at least one funnel cloud and a possible tornado around 20 miles east-southeast of Santa Rosa. This storm collapsed to the northwest of House and generated a swath of very heavy rainfall over southwest Quay County. Radar estimates indicated three to five inches of rain fell in less than one hour. Employees at the New Mexico Wind Energy Center reported large areas of standing water the next morning.

Chaser reported a tornado east/southeast of Santa Rosa on the ground for 10 minutes.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
00:24 UTC01:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:54 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), 00:00Z

0.5 hours before the tornado, 217 km from the path. May 22, 2017.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Albuquerq/Krtlnd, NM at 00:00Z on 2017-05-22Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 4 joules per kilogram, CIN -3, lifted condensation level 3886 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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 2017-05-22The 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 46 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 40 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
4 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-3 J/kg
Surface CAPE
21 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
3886 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
40 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
46 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
102 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
10.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

11.5 hours after it, 217 km from the path. May 22, 2017.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Albuquerq/Krtlnd, NM at 12:00Z on 2017-05-22Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -91611, lifted condensation level 2802 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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 2017-05-22The 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 -70 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 52 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-91611 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2802 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
52 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-70 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
31 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Santa Rosa (SXU), 38 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
22:35 UTC7541.4160° 15 kt191016.9
22:55 UTC7342150° 15 kt191016.3
23:15 UTC69.345.5340° 6 kt1016.9+TSRA
23:35 UTC60.352.790° 11 kt1016.6-TSRA
23:55 UTC6454.5100° 8 kt1016.3VCTS
00:15 UTC62.653.80° 0 kt1015.9VCTS
00:35 UTC6652.3160° 9 kt181016.3
00:55 UTC69.852.2170° 15 kt241016.3VCTS
01:15 UTC6951.6150° 15 kt241016.9
01:35 UTC68.451.3150° 18 kt251017.3
01:55 UTC63.751.4120° 15 kt181017.3
02:15 UTC6251.3110° 8 kt1017.6

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

The radar

The Cannon AFB radar (KFDX), 61 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:29 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.

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of May 21, 2017

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 212:55 PM CDTEF0Waller, TX7.220$5,000

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.