Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2005

F0 tornado, Cornudas, Texas, August 28, 2005

This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Hudspeth County on August 28, 2005, touching down at 4:27 PM MDT and reaching 10 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 28, 2005
Touchdown
4:27 PM MDT (22:27 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Hudspeth County
Touchdown point
31.880, -105.480
Lift-off point
31.880, -105.480
Record number
357

What the Weather Service recorded

A supercell thunderstorm formed near the NM border north of Cornudas, and traveled south-southeast across Hudspeth County. It produced a brief small tornado which touchdown in an uninhabited area, then dropped golf ball size hail which broke car windshields in Cornudas.

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
22:30 UTC23:14 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningEPZ
23:19 UTC00:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningEPZ
00:30 UTC01:13 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningEPZ

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 19:57 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

10.5 hours before the tornado, 115 km from the path. August 28, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Santa Teresa, NM at 12:00Z on 2005-08-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 22 joules per kilogram, CIN -412, lifted condensation level 2403 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 12:00Z on 2005-08-28The 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 -25 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 32 knots.193958Sfc1 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
22 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-412 J/kg
Surface CAPE
186 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2403 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
32 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-25 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
14 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

1.5 hours after it, 115 km from the path. August 29, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Santa Teresa, NM at 00:00Z on 2005-08-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 329 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 3172 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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 2005-08-29The 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 -9 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 knots.193958Sfc1 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
329 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
323 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
3172 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-9 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
65 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.2
0-3 km lapse rate
10.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Guadalupe Pass Amos (GDP), 64 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:51 UTC776370° 7 kt1018.6
21:51 UTC766370° 16 kt1017.9
22:51 UTC605550° 27 kt1017.9
23:51 UTC675570° 16 kt1017.6

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

The radar

The El Paso radar (KEPZ), 115 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:28 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
22:27 UTCTORNADO10 Ne CornudasHudspeth, TXREPORT FROM MOTORIST ON HIGHWAY 62/180.
22:49 UTCHAIL 1.75N CornudasHudspeth, TXTRAINED SPOTTER REPORTED GOLFBALL HAIL IN PROGRESS AND BREAKING CAR WINDOWS.
23:42 UTCHAIL 0.7525 Ene El PasoEl Paso, TXRANGER AT HUECO TANKS STATE PARK REPORTED 3/4 INCH HAIL.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2005 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 28, 2005

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 283:54 PM CDTF0Mobile, AL1.030$10,000
August 287:04 PM CDTF0Baldwin, AL0.530$4,000
August 287:22 PM CDTF0Mobile, AL0.530$10,000
August 289:30 PM CDTF0Okaloosa, FL0.530$10,000

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.