Unrated tornado, Ft Sumner, New Mexico, April 26, 2025

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

April 26, 2025

Touchdown

5:35 PM MDT (23:35 UTC)

Lifted

5:42 PM MDT (23:42 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

De Baca County

Touchdown point

34.309, -104.239

Lift-off point

34.311, -104.232

Record number

2504261735-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ABQ, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU.

• Photos from two chasers on social media indicate a tornado on the ground approximately 11 miles south of Fort Sumner. De Baca County officials reported no damage in the area.

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

A backdoor front pushed through northeast NM during the morning hours of April 25th stalling across east central NM midday. Additionally, a dryline backed west into the southeast plains of New Mexico. These surface boundaries allowed higher low level Gulf moisture. Daytime heating, combined with the higher moisture, lift from the aforementioned boundaries and an upper level shortwave overhead and stronger vertical wind shear, resulted in the development of discrete severe storms across far east central NM. These storms produced large hail up to 2.75 inches in diameter. Training thunderstorms between Tucumcari and Clovis resulted in some flash flooding on State Highway 275. Upslope easterly behind and north of the backdoor front resulted in the development of additional strong to severe storms across the northeast and east central plains during the overnight hours of April 25th into April 26th. Some of the storms resulted in quarter size hail and flash flooding in Fort Sumner. Rainfall amounts of around 4 inches were observed in town. Storms exited into West Texas around sunrise April 26th. Another round of discrete supercells developed along and east of a stalled surface front across the eastern highlands and plains and ahead of an upper low moving into California. These supercells brought large hail as well as producing brief tornadoes south of Fort Sumner and north and northeast of Roswell. Storms dissipated during the late evening hours with the loss of daytime heating.

Photos from two chasers on social media indicate a tornado on the ground approximately 11 miles south of Fort Sumner.

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 tornado watch, issued at 21:03 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:46 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 Cannon AFB radar (KFDX), 67 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:33 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 2025 tornado in New MexicoEvery tornado in New Mexico since 1950Warnings in force in New Mexico nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.