EF0 tornado, Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, March 26, 2017

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

March 26, 2017

Touchdown

2:00 PM CDT (19:00 UTC)

Lifted

2:03 PM CDT (19:03 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Not recorded

Touchdown point

18.383, -66.031

Lift-off point

18.389, -66.029

Record number

1703261300-01

A surface low pressure north of Hispanola induced a moist and convectively unstable air mass over Puerto Rico. This southerly flow interacted with the island topography enhancing the low-level convergence along and downwind of the Cordillera Central. Scattered showers began to develop during the early afternoon hours across the northern slopes of Puerto Rico. One of these showers collided with the sea breeze front over southeast portions of San Juan, giving way to a brief EF0 tornado/landspout that touched down between Villa Andalucia and Park Gardens, Rio Piedras at approximately 3 PM AST.

Brief tornado in Villa Andalucia, Trujillo Alto left several trees and power lines down as well as a few houses with structural damage.

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.

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 San Juan radar (TJUA), 30 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:59 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 2017 tornado in Puerto RicoEvery tornado in Puerto Rico since 1950Warnings in force in Puerto Rico 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.