Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2004

F0 tornado, Snyder, Texas, May 25, 2004

This F0 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Scurry County on May 25, 2004, touching down at 5:45 PM CDT and reaching 50 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
May 25, 2004
Touchdown
5:45 PM CDT (22:45 UTC)
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Scurry County
Touchdown point
32.670, -100.970
Lift-off point
32.680, -100.930
Record number
928

What the Weather Service recorded

Several severe thunderstorms affected the northeast Permian Basin of west Texas during the late afternoon and evening of the 25th. These storms developed near a dryline/cold front triple point. A highly visible tornado was observed by many residents of Snyder in Scurry County. The parent thunderstorm produced large hail it tracked northeast over the city. A second supercell tracked east, then southeast across northern Mitchell County. This storm produced two tornadoes, baseball size hail, and damaging winds in the vicinity of Colorado City and Loraine.

A tornado was observed by several Snyder residents to the southwest of the city. The tornado remained over open country west of U.S. Highway 350 and resulted in no damage.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:53 UTC23:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningMAF
23:25 UTC02:30 UTCFlash Flood WarningMAF
23:49 UTC00:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningMAF

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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.

Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 12:00Z

10.8 hours before the tornado, 142 km from the path. May 25, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Midland Regional, TX at 12:00Z on 2004-05-25Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 931 joules per kilogram, CIN -348, lifted condensation level 1756 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, Midland Regional, TX at 12:00Z on 2004-05-25The 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 12 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 42 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
931 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-348 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1010 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1756 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
42 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
12 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
69 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.2
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 00:00Z

1.2 hours after it, 142 km from the path. May 26, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Midland Regional, TX at 00:00Z on 2004-05-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -27653, lifted condensation level 4176 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Midland Regional, TX at 00:00Z on 2004-05-26The 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 50 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-27653 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
4176 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
50 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
121 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
9.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 135 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:47 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 2004 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 25, 2004

10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 255:15 PM EDTF2Crawford, PA7.050$3.5 million
May 255:37 PM EDTF1Washington, MD1.5100$250,000
May 255:56 PM EDTF0Frederick, MD0.550
May 256:10 PM EDTF0Venango, PA0.3100
May 255:23 PM CDTF0Franklin, IL0.550
May 256:49 PM EDTF0Loudoun, VA0.550$1,000
May 255:55 PM CDTF0Bollinger, MO0.550
May 256:45 PM CDTF0Mitchell, TX1.2125
May 257:12 PM CDTF0Mitchell, TX0.175
May 2511:25 PM EDTF1Lancaster, VA0.110$20,000

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.