Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2023

Unrated tornado, San Perlita, Texas, August 15, 2023

This Unrated tornado ran 0.1 miles across Willacy County on August 15, 2023, touching down at 2:50 PM CDT and reaching 10 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 mph

    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. Unratedthis tornado

    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
Unrated
Date
August 15, 2023
Touchdown
2:50 PM CDT (19:50 UTC)
Lifted
2:55 PM CDT (19:55 UTC)
On the ground
5 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.1 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Willacy County
Touchdown point
26.496, -97.689
Lift-off point
26.496, -97.689
Record number
2308151350-01

What the Weather Service recorded

The sea breeze spun up a couple of landspouts in Cameron and Willacy Counties the afternoon of August 15th. The first was reported by an NWS Employee in Cameron County; local media sent in video evidence of another landspout in Willacy County. No damage or injuries were reported with either event.

A member of the media shared video of a well defined landspout just north of TX-186 west of San Perlita around 2:50PM CDT on August 15th. The commenter said it lasted around 5 minutes. Radar was used to give a more precise location and time. Dust and dirt were clearly lifted into the air in the video around the landspout. No damage or injuries were observed or reported.

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
17:00 UTC00:00 UTCHeat AdvisoryBRO

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 15:59 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

7.8 hours before the tornado, 72 km from the path. August 15, 2023.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brownsville Intl, TX at 12:00Z on 2023-08-15Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2616 joules per kilogram, CIN -4, lifted condensation level 710 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 2023-08-15The 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 -35 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 12 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
2616 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-4 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2271 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
710 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
12 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-35 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
17 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

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

4.2 hours after it, 72 km from the path. August 16, 2023.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brownsville Intl, TX at 00:00Z on 2023-08-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1176 joules per kilogram, CIN -93, lifted condensation level 1354 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 2023-08-16The 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 6 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 10 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
1176 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-93 J/kg
Surface CAPE
4405 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1354 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
2 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
6 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
19 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Brownsville radar (KBRO), 70 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:51 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 2023 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 15, 2023

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 152:35 PM CDTUnratedCameron, TX0.010

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.