Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2010

EF0 tornado, Chancellor, Texas, May 22, 2010

This EF0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Pecos County on May 22, 2010, touching down at 8:15 PM CDT and reaching 150 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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
May 22, 2010
Touchdown
8:15 PM CDT (01:15 UTC)
Lifted
8:16 PM CDT (01:16 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.3 miles (0.4 km)
Path width
150 yards (137 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Pecos County
Touchdown point
30.820, -103.299
Lift-off point
30.820, -103.299
Record number
1005221915-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak upper level disturbance moving out of Mexico into southwest Texas, combined with abundant amounts of low level moisture and a high level of atmospheric instability, resulted in the development of a supercell thunderstorm across western portions of Pecos County. A surface low area of low pressure located across the Trans Pecos Region increased low level wind shear and aided this storm in becoming tornadic.

A trained weather spotter reported a tornado at 1715 CST about 18 miles west southwest of Fort Stockton. No damage was reported with this weak brief touchdown.

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

The warnings

31 minutes of warning. NWS MAF issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:44 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:28 UTC00:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningMAF
23:43 UTC00:15 UTCTornado WarningMAF
00:15 UTC00:45 UTCTornado WarningMAF
00:43 UTC03:45 UTCFlood AdvisoryMAF
00:44 UTC01:15 UTCTornado WarningMAF
01:16 UTC02:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningMAF
01:19 UTC01:45 UTCTornado 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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), 00:00Z

1.3 hours before the tornado, 163 km from the path. May 23, 2010.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Midland Regional, TX at 00:00Z on 2010-05-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2158 joules per kilogram, CIN -235, lifted condensation level 1448 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 00:00Z on 2010-05-23The 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 14 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 23 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
2158 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-235 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2843 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1448 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
4 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
14 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
50 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.4
0-3 km lapse rate
6.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

10.7 hours after it, 163 km from the path. May 23, 2010.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Midland Regional, TX at 12:00Z on 2010-05-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2293 joules per kilogram, CIN -222, lifted condensation level 715 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 2010-05-23The 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 57 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 15 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
2293 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-222 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2470 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
715 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
57 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
128 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 163 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:15 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 2010 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 22, 2010

13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 225:31 PM CDTEF0Walworth, SD0.550
May 226:16 PM CDTEF1Walworth, SD0.5100
May 226:21 PM CDTEF4Bowdle tornado, SD5.71,200
May 226:36 PM CDTEF0Pecos, TX1.8150
May 227:10 PM CDTEF0Edmunds, SD0.330
May 227:48 PM CDTEF0Edmunds, SD0.210
May 227:48 PM CDTEF0Edmunds, SD0.230
May 228:01 PM CDTEF2Edmunds, SD18.6200
May 228:26 PM CDTEF1Hyde, SD1.6100
May 227:45 PM MDTEF0Cherry, NE1.020$42,000
May 229:10 PM CDTEF2Brown, SD1.3100
May 229:11 PM CDTEF2Tripp, SD2.9150$80,000
May 229:30 PM CDTEF2Keya Paha, NE9.020$120,000

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.