Unrated tornado, Jemez Spgs, New Mexico, May 11, 2024

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

May 11, 2024

Touchdown

12:53 PM MDT (18:53 UTC)

Lifted

12:54 PM MDT (18:54 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Sandoval County

Touchdown point

35.820, -106.580

Lift-off point

35.823, -106.578

Record number

2405111253-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ABQ, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 65 mph.

• Video of tornado from Jamey Bryan - https://x.com/granttosterudwx/status/1789776593314808050 There were no damage indicators across HWY 4 near this location so will keep rating EF-Unknown. Elevation at this point is 8150ft above sea level.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

An upper low over the Great Basin progressed east towards Colorado during the day Saturday. At the surface, a backdoor front pushed as far west as the Continental Divide with higher surface moisture across the Upper and Middle Rio Grande Valley and eastern New Mexico east of the front. Lift ahead of the upper low, interacting with the higher moisture along with high vertical wind shear resulted in the development of severe storms across central New Mexico with one storm spawning a tornado in the Jemez Mountains northeast of Battleship Rock. Storms then moved east into the highlands and plains of eastern New Mexico during the evening hours where they produced quarter to golf ball size hail. A storm that produced golf ball sized hail in southern Chaves County also caused some flash flooding along State Highway 13 and on the normally dry Rio Felix. Storms exited east into Texas by midnight.||Key Words: Tornado, Hail, Flash Flood, Thunderstorm Wind Gust.

Damage survey used video submitted to broadcast media to pinpoint the location of the tornado however the survey found few if any damage indicators for a damage rating. The only tree damage may have been from prior high winds and fire. A couple of ranches and residents along with a neighborhood to the SE of the location did not have any damages or downed trees in a pattern consistent with tornado damage. Other roads were restricted, and the survey could not access areas where tornado damage was suspected. Elevation at the location of the tornado was 8150 feet.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS ABQ issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:40 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:00 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:29 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.

Los Alamos (LAM), 29 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Albuquerque radar (KABX), 78 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:54 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 2024 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.