EF0 tornado, San Antonio, Texas, July 24, 2008

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

July 24, 2008

Touchdown

9:20 AM CDT (14:20 UTC)

Lifted

9:25 AM CDT (14:25 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$800,000

County

Bexar County

Touchdown point

29.391, -98.483

Lift-off point

29.393, -98.487

Record number

0807240820-01

Hurricane Dolly made landfall on South Padre Island on the afternoon of July 23. On the morning of the 24th, the center of Dolly was located near Laredo and had weakened to tropical storm strength. An outer rain band from the storm moved through South Central Texas and caused damage in Bexar County.

A tornado touched down on the south side of San Antonio. There was considerable damage to a boat shop and boat storage facility. A boat storage rack had its roof and top level twisted back on itself and the roof of an adjacent building was damaged in a similar manor. Tornadic Winds damaged roofs and uprooted trees along Steves and McKinley Avenues. The most extensive damage was along Steves Avenue where many of the homes along the street suffered roof damage and many large trees were uprooted or snapped off. One home had its metal roof peeled back by the wind. Another home had a carport and patio roof torn off the house and thrown over the roof to the other side of the house. A fast food restaurant on the northeast corner of Steves and Roosevelt Aves. had a portion of its roof blown off. It looked like the wind entered through a gable vent and pushed the roof out from the inside. Winds were estimated near 80 mph. Sixty homes were damaged along with 10 commercial buildings.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 12:04 UTC and running to 00:00 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:52 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 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.

The Austin/San Antonio radar (KEWX), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:20 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 2008 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas 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.