Tornadoes · United States · Puerto Rico · 2007

EF0 tornado, Anasco to Rincon, Puerto Rico, August 6, 2007

From Anasco to Rincon, this EF0 tornado ran 1.3 miles across Puerto Rico on August 6, 2007, touching down at 1:20 PM CDT and reaching 2 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $35,000 of property damage.

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
August 6, 2007
Touchdown
1:20 PM CDT (18:20 UTC)
Lifted
1:25 PM CDT (18:25 UTC)
On the ground
5 minutes
Path length
1.3 miles (2.1 km)
Path width
2 yards (2 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$35,000
Crop damage
$1,000
County
Not recorded
Touchdown point
18.285, -67.170
Lift-off point
18.285, -67.190
Record number
0708061220-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Upper level low in the vicinity of the local area produced an unstable airmass which combined with light winds, and resulted in favorable conditions for strong thunderstorms to develop over the western section of Puerto Rico during the afternoon.

A tornado was reported at Barrio Playa in the A��asco municipality. Five telephone poles and one power pole were downed. Some tree branches were snapped.

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.

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 radar

The San Juan radar (TJUA), 118 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:22 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 2007 tornado in Puerto RicoEvery tornado in Puerto Rico since 1950Warnings in force in Puerto Rico nowThe forecast where you are

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.