Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2017
EF0 tornado, Rankin, Texas, June 18, 2017
This EF0 tornado ran 6.1 miles across Upton County on June 18, 2017, touching down at 7:05 PM CDT and reaching 200 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.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- June 18, 2017
- Touchdown
- 7:05 PM CDT (00:05 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:13 PM CDT (00:13 UTC)
- On the ground
- 8 minutes
- Path length
- 6.1 miles (9.8 km)
- Path width
- 200 yards (183 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Upton County
- Touchdown point
- 31.159, -101.828
- Lift-off point
- 31.186, -101.731
- Record number
- 1706181805-01
What the Weather Service recorded
There was an upper level trough over the Great Lakes/Mississippi Valley region with a cold front that had passed through portions of the Permian Basin. The front created a temperature contrast between the central and northern Permian Basin. This front along with hot, unstable conditions south of the front allowed for thunderstorms to develop. These storms produced a couple of landspouts and a tornado across the southern Permian Basin and Lower Trans Pecos.
A thunderstorm moved across Upton County and produced a tornado six miles southeast of Rankin. The tornado was confirmed in open country south of Highway 67. There was no damage reported with this tornado so it was rated as an EF-0.
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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC | 00:36 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MAF |
| 00:06 UTC | 00:34 UTC | Tornado Warning | MAF |
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 19:40 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
0.1 hours before the tornado, 95 km from the path. June 19, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2292 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -270 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3661 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1548 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 5 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 14 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 293 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.5 K/km
Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 12:00Z
11.9 hours after it, 95 km from the path. June 19, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1578 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -271 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1936 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 670 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 71 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 201 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
The surface observations
Ozona (OZA), 73 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:15 UTC | 100.4 | 60.8 | 160° 10 kt | 17 | 1009.5 | |
| 22:35 UTC | 100.4 | 60.8 | 150° 10 kt | 19 | 1009.5 | |
| 22:55 UTC | 100.4 | 59 | 160° 11 kt | 17 | 1009.5 | |
| 23:15 UTC | 100.4 | 59 | 160° 7 kt | 17 | 1009.5 | |
| 23:35 UTC | 98.6 | 59 | 170° 14 kt | 1009.5 | ||
| 23:55 UTC | 96.8 | 59 | 170° 11 kt | 16 | 1009.5 | |
| 00:15 UTC | 96.8 | 57.2 | 170° 15 kt | 1009.1 | ||
| 00:35 UTC | 95 | 57.2 | 180° 10 kt | 1009.5 | ||
| 00:55 UTC | 95 | 57.2 | 170° 14 kt | 17 | 1009.8 | |
| 01:15 UTC | 91.4 | 59 | 170° 11 kt | 15 | 1010.5 | |
| 01:35 UTC | 91.4 | 57.2 | 170° 9 kt | 15 | 1010.5 | |
| 01:55 UTC | 91.4 | 57.2 | 170° 9 kt | 1010.5 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 94 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:03 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:05 UTC | TORNADO 0 | 6 Se Rankin | Upton, TX | TORNADO CONFIRMED IN OPEN COUNTRY SOUTH OF HWY 67. TORNADO LIFTED AT 713PM. NO DAMAGE REPORTED AT THIS TIME. |
| 00:13 UTC | TORNADO | 6 Se Rankin | Upton, TX | TORNADO CONFIRMED IN OPEN COUNTRY SOUTH OF HWY 67. NO DAMAGE REPORTED AT THIS TIME. |
| 01:00 UTC | TORNADO | 6 Ne Big Lake | Reagan, TX | BRIEF LANDSPOUT TORNADO IN OBSERVED IN OPEN COUNTRY. NO DAMAGE REPORTED. RATED EF0. |
| 01:05 UTC | TORNADO | 20 N Big Lake | Reagan, TX | BRIEF LANDSPOUT TORNADO OBSERVED IN OPEN FIELD JUST EAST OF SH 137 ROUGHLY 20 TO 25 MILES NORTH OF BIG LAKE. NO DAMAGE REPORTED. RATED EF0. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2017 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 18, 2017
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.