EF0 tornado, Picacho, New Mexico, May 23, 2018

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

May 23, 2018

Touchdown

3:06 PM MDT (21:06 UTC)

Lifted

3:20 PM MDT (21:20 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

4.0 miles (6.5 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lincoln County

Touchdown point

33.160, -105.240

Lift-off point

33.160, -105.170

Record number

1805231506-01

For a third day in a row, and potentially the most widespread, severe weather impacted eastern New Mexico on May 23, 2018 as a strong dry line shifted east across the high plains. Showers and thunderstorms fired up just east of the central mountain chain by the mid to late afternoon hours then moved eastward on to the high plains through the early evening. A very impressive supercell storm over far southwestern Chaves County produced two tornadoes and large hail. Other storms in the area also produced severe hail and funnel clouds before merging into a large cluster of strong storms near Roswell. Another very impressive, long duration supercell storm over western San Miguel County produced torrential rainfall, flooding, high winds, and very large hail near Tecolotito and Anton Chico. Several other storms across the eastern plains were strong to severe with heavy rain, hail, and high winds.

A second thunderstorm southwest of Picacho produced what another tornado within rural southeastern Lincoln County.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS ABQ issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:06 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:15 UTC and running to 01:10 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:33 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 Holloman AFB radar (KHDX), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:04 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 2018 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.