Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2008

EF0 tornado, Sebastian, Texas, August 26, 2008

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Willacy County on August 26, 2008, touching down at 4:19 PM CDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $2,000 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 26, 2008
Touchdown
4:19 PM CDT (21:19 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$2,000
County
Willacy County
Touchdown point
26.365, -97.783
Lift-off point
26.365, -97.783
Record number
0808261519-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Showers and thunderstorms, developing and moving north along a differential heating boundary across western Cameron and Willacy County, likely encountered additional lift from the Gulf Coast sea breeze, leading to rapid intensification of a small cluster of storms as it moved from western Cameron into western Willacy County during the mid afternoon.

Emergency management officials reported a brief touchdown of a small tornado in western Willacy County, likely between Sebastian and Lyford. The tornado produced some damage, but details were not known.

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 19:56 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.

Brownsville Intl, TX (KBRO), 12:00Z

9.3 hours before the tornado, 64 km from the path. August 26, 2008.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brownsville Intl, TX at 12:00Z on 2008-08-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2056 joules per kilogram, CIN -13, lifted condensation level 706 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, Brownsville Intl, TX at 12:00Z on 2008-08-26The 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 -11 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 6 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
2056 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-13 J/kg
Surface CAPE
354 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
706 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-11 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-8 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Brownsville Intl, TX (KBRO), 00:00Z

2.7 hours after it, 64 km from the path. August 27, 2008.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brownsville Intl, TX at 00:00Z on 2008-08-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2154 joules per kilogram, CIN -9, lifted condensation level 828 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, Brownsville Intl, TX at 00:00Z on 2008-08-27The 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 10 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 14 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
2154 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-9 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1528 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
828 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
10 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-40 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Harlingen International Airport (HRL), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
19:52 UTC8774120° 11 kt1010.2
20:52 UTC8775130° 10 kt1009.5
21:52 UTC8073350° 10 kt1009.5
22:52 UTC817520° 5 kt1009.1

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

The radar

The Brownsville radar (KBRO), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:19 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 2008 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 26, 2008

14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 2612:10 PM EDTEF0Monroe, GA0.350
August 2612:18 PM EDTEF0Chester, SC0.120
August 2612:25 PM EDTEF1Hall, GA1.1200$550,000
August 261:18 PM CDTEF1Hart, GA to SC12.430
August 262:36 PM EDTEF1Oconee, SC6.830
August 263:20 PM EDTEF0Pickens, SC0.120
August 263:35 PM EDTEF2Anderson, SC5.530
August 263:38 PM EDTEF1Hall, GA4.8100$750,000
August 264:05 PM EDTEF1Greenville, SC6.130$50,000
August 264:20 PM EDTEF1Hall, GA0.8100$100,000
August 264:30 PM EDTEF1Jackson, GA7.61003$350,000
August 266:42 PM EDTEF0Fairfield, SC4.860$5,000
August 266:55 PM EDTEF0Wilkes, GA5.1100$30,000
August 267:12 PM EDTEF0Chester, SC0.120

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.