Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2002

F0 tornado, Van Horn, Texas, August 1, 2002

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Culberson County on August 1, 2002, touching down at 6:45 PM CDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 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. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 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
F0
Date
August 1, 2002
Touchdown
6:45 PM CDT (23:45 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Culberson County
Touchdown point
31.050, -104.620
Lift-off point
31.050, -104.620
Record number
251

What the Weather Service recorded

An active severe weather episode unfolded across the central and western Permian Basin...and southeast New Mexico during the evening of the 1st. Several damaging microbursts affected the area. Flash flooding along with intense and damaging lightnin, accompanied the storms. Total losses in the Permian Basin likely exceeded $300,000.

A DPS trooper traveling on Interstate 10 reported a "long and skinny" tornado east of Van Horn. Radar indicated a strong thunderstorm in the area with cloud tops to 50,000 feet.

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:41 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 air that afternoon

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.

Santa Teresa, NM (KEPZ), 12:00Z

11.8 hours before the tornado, 217 km from the path. August 1, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Santa Teresa, NM at 12:00Z on 2002-08-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 68 joules per kilogram, CIN -201, lifted condensation level 2206 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Santa Teresa, NM at 12:00Z on 2002-08-01The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 2 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 11 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
68 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-201 J/kg
Surface CAPE
256 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2206 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
2 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
54 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Santa Teresa, NM (KEPZ), 00:00Z

0.2 hours after it, 217 km from the path. August 2, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Santa Teresa, NM at 00:00Z on 2002-08-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 118 joules per kilogram, CIN -6, lifted condensation level 3389 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Santa Teresa, NM at 00:00Z on 2002-08-02The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 7 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 7 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
118 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-6 J/kg
Surface CAPE
77 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
3389 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
2 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
7 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
59 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
10.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Guadalupe Pass Amos (GDP), 89 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:51 UTC894680° 9 kt1018.6
22:51 UTC914880° 16 kt1017.6
23:51 UTC8950180° 11 kt201017.6
00:51 UTC8650120° 11 kt1018.3

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

The radar

The El Paso radar (KEPZ), 217 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:46 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 2002 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 1, 2002

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 11:58 PM EDTF1Charlevoix, MI1.0110
August 16:55 PM EDTF0Cheboygan, MI1.020
August 17:02 PM EDTF0Presque Isle, MI1.020
August 15:15 PM PDTF0Washoe, NV0.1100
August 18:15 PM EDTF1Osceola, MI6.58501$500,000
August 110:05 PM EDTF0Newaygo, MI15.015$2,000

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.