EF0 tornado, Boaz, New Mexico, May 26, 2019

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 26, 2019

Touchdown

6:04 PM MDT (00:04 UTC)

Lifted

6:09 PM MDT (00:09 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.4 miles (3.8 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Chaves County

Touchdown point

33.640, -103.710

Lift-off point

33.647, -103.669

Record number

1905261804-01

A potent upper level storm system approaching New Mexico from the west interacted with deep moisture and very unstable conditions along a sharp dryline over eastern New Mexico on May 26, 2019. Dry showers and thunderstorms with strong downburst winds first developed along the Continental Divide by late morning before marching east into the Rio Grande Valley through the afternoon. Several locations within the Rio Grande Valley reported wind gusts in excess of 60 mph, including Los Lunas, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos. Wind damage was also reported as this activity moved across the central mountain chain into the Estancia Valley. Meanwhile, showers and thunderstorms fired up along the dryline in eastern New Mexico then quickly became severe with large hail, high winds, and several tornados. A violent supercell thunderstorm that moved through Union County during the late afternoon produced at least two tornadoes and three inch hail. Severe thunderstorms then evolved into a quasi-linear convective system over the Caprock region and resulted in a large area of high winds and large hail. Several more tornadoes developed along the southern edge of this line, including a spectacular wedge tornado near Dora. In addition to all the severe thunderstorms that impacted the region, many areas outside of thunderstorm activity in central and western New Mexico also reported strong southwest winds with gusts of 50 to 60 mph.

A storm chaser reported a tornado on the ground moving to the east-northeast over extreme eastern Chaves County.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:42 UTC and running to 01:13 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 19:56 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.

Melrose Gunary Ran (4MR), 74 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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 2019 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

37 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.