EF0 tornado, Raymondville to Yturria, Texas, June 30, 2010

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

June 30, 2010

Touchdown

12:16 PM CDT (17:16 UTC)

Lifted

12:18 PM CDT (17:18 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.2 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Willacy County

Touchdown point

26.552, -97.780

Lift-off point

26.544, -97.788

Record number

1006301116-01

Feeder bands from intensifying Hurricane Alex produced a prolonged period of locally heavy rain, gusty winds, and a few tornadoes during the day and evening of June 30th. The center of Alex drifted north-northwest from early evening on the 29th until mid morning of the 30th, reaching a point a little more than 100 miles southeast of Brownsville before accelerating westward into the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, during the late afternoon and evening. While accelerating, Alex rapidly gained strength as the inner eyewall tightened; at landfall around 8 PM CST on June 30th, Alex had reached 109 mph, just shy of Category 3 (111 mph) strength with a central pressure of 946 mb.||Steady, locally torrential rains added up to roughly 6 to 9 inches for the entire episode across the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and 4 to 6 inches elsewhere. Some locations may have received nearly 10 inches of rain. Three tornadoes were spotted during the morning of June 30th, including two causing notable damage in Cameron County. Sustained tropical storm force winds were limited to Cameron, Willacy, and coastal Kenedy Counties, though gusts to tropical storm force (39 mph or greater) occurred in central and eastern Hidalgo County, covering the more populated Lower Rio Grande Valley. ||Wind damage was minor, at best, outside of locations where tornadoes touched down - and concentrated mainly along and near the coastline. The lack of persistent strong winds minimized power outages, with an estimated 9,000 customers without power across the Rio Grande Valley at the peak of the storm, 8,000 in Cameron County alone. Though property damage was minimal throughout the Lower Rio Grande Valley, nearly $10 million in sorghum grain damage alone was reported in Hidalgo County, a consequence not only of the rainfall but the timing of the rain during a critical growing period.||The heavy rains flooded many poor drainage locations across the Lower Valley, but nowhere near the impact Hurricane Dolly had in 2008, when a band of 12 to 18 inches fell from Laguna Vista through Harlingen toward Raymondville and into eastern Hidalgo County - falling on top of wet soils from previous rains in early July of that year. For Alex, modestly dry conditions through June allowed some of the rains to soak into the ground, reducing the impact of urban and flash flooding during and soon after the event ended.||Significantly worse conditions were noted across the border in Matamoros and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Local rainfall estimates of 10 inches or more combined with poor drainage conditions flooded out six colonias in Matamoros, caused widespread urban type flooding to 400 neighborhoods (80% of the city) and caused significant travel issues. 4,000 residents sought shelter from the floods. In Reynosa, immediately across the border from the City of Hidalgo and Pharr in Hidalgo County, 80 colonias flooded and 15 trees were uprooted, and another seven neighborhoods flooded in nearby Rio Bravo. ||Substantially worse conditions were seen in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, where torrential rains in the area and along the Sierra Madre Oriental foothills, creating record flows and life-taking flash flooding along the normally dry Santa Catarina River, which set a record flow of 2500 cubic meters per second (cms), or 88,000 cubic feet per second. Estimated rainfall of more than 16 inches fell toward the mountains in a short period of time. Damage was estimated at more than $1.35 billion (USD) as of August 5th.||Incredible rains, perhaps 50 to 70 inches, fell along the east facing slopes of the Sierra Madre in Nuevo Leon and Coahuila State with Alex, and Tropical Depression Number 2 to follow a week later. The one-two punch would ultimately lead to record flooding along the Rio Grande into the Rio Grande Valley for much of July. See the July report for full details. ||For data tables and local summaries, go to http://weather.gov/rgv/?n=2010_alexindex.

Texas Military Forces reported a small, brief touch down near Highway 77 north of Raymondville. No damage was reported as of this writing.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

10 minutes of warning. NWS BRO issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:06 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:46 UTC and running to 01:00 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 16:31 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.

Edinburg (EBG), 36 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Brownsville radar (KBRO), 79 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:16 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 2010 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.