Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2019

EF0 tornado, Port Isabel, Texas, July 26, 2019

This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Cameron County on July 26, 2019, touching down at 3:15 PM CDT and reaching 15 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $500 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
July 26, 2019
Touchdown
3:15 PM CDT (20:15 UTC)
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
15 yards (14 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$500
County
Cameron County
Touchdown point
26.106, -97.163
Lift-off point
26.106, -97.163
Record number
1907261415-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak easterly wave helped produce a rare afternoon band of showers, some rotating, from South Padre Island into the Gulf waters out to 60 nautical miles out. One cell produced a brief waterspout just east of the middle of the City beaches that moved onshore before dissipating on the beach before reaching any buildings.

Beach Patrol and Emergency Management from the City of South Padre Island, as well as public video, showed a brief waterspout moved onshore near Gulf Boulevard City Beach Access #10. Before dissipating, the waterspout displaced beach umbrellas and tents, with minimal damage. Time estimated from video, reports, and radar.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:45 UTC21:14 UTCMarine WarningBRO

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 20:00 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.

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

8.3 hours before the tornado, 33 km from the path. July 26, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brownsville Intl, TX at 12:00Z on 2019-07-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1712 joules per kilogram, CIN -10, lifted condensation level 752 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 2019-07-26The 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 -15 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 5 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
1712 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-10 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2340 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
752 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-15 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-31 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

3.7 hours after it, 33 km from the path. July 27, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brownsville Intl, TX at 00:00Z on 2019-07-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1623 joules per kilogram, CIN -10, lifted condensation level 971 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 2019-07-27The 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 -13 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
1623 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-10 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3984 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
971 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
4 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-13 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
13 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Brownsville radar (KBRO), 33 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:12 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
20:15 UTCTORNADO3 N South Padre IslandCameron, TXBEACH PATROL AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT REPORTED THAT A WATERSPOUT MOVED ASHORE OFF OF THE GULF OF MEXICO AT BEACH ACCESS 3 ON SOUTH PADRE ISLAND. IT DISPLACED BEACH UMBRELLAS AND TENTS. TIME ESTIMATED AT 3:15 PM LOCAL TIM

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

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.