EF0 tornado, Port Isabel, Texas, March 28, 2025

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

March 28, 2025

Touchdown

2:10 AM CDT (07:10 UTC)

Lifted

2:12 AM CDT (07:12 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

County

Cameron County

Touchdown point

26.071, -97.202

Lift-off point

26.070, -97.201

Record number

2503280110-01

Several rounds of showers and thunderstorms pummeled the Lower Rio Grande Valley, especially during the afternoon and overnight hours of March 27th into early on March 28th, resulting in historic seasonal rainfall and widespread flash and areal flooding across the RGV. Total rainfall ranged from 8 to nearly 19 inches based on trusted observations, with 10 inches or more falling across some of the highest populated locations from south McAllen through the south side of Interstate Highway 2 in Hidalgo County, then farther north in Cameron County, where 12 to nearly 19 inches fell between La Feria and Rio Hondo, including Harlingen and San Benito. Trusted radar estimates indicated up to 20.5 inches in east Harlingen, but as of this writing there were no verified values this high from trusted observers.||Initial rainfall began late on March 26th in eastern and southern Cameron County, with flooding in east Brownsville toward Port Isabel around sunrise on the 27th. ||Nearly five thousand homes and other structures were impacted, with more than two thousand having major damage or destruction due to 2 or more feet of water in them. Hundreds of local roads were flooded with up to 4 feet of water in some places, and at least one thousand vehicles trapped on flooded roads were damaged or totaled. Unfortunately, there were fatalities, with five dead on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande due to drowning and a lightning-induced fire, and one on the Mexican side of the border in Reynosa.||In addition to the flooding, wind damage occurred in several locations, with two small tornadoes touching down during the late afternoon of the 27th near Edcouch, and just after midnight on the 28th in Port Isabel.||Though damage estimates were still unknown as of late May, it is estimated that total damage was upwards of $100 million. By early July, damage estimates had risen to $157 million; these numbers only included initial values of Public Assistance (PA) of $94 million, and $63 million in Individual Assistance in much of the Rio Grande Valley. These values did not include privately-insured damage, and totals were likely to exceed $200 million. Additional damage estimates will be available by the end of 2025.

The manager and security officer of the Long Island Village (Port Isabel) swing bridge reported damage from a likely small and brief tornado that crossed the bridge just after 1 AM CST (2 AM CDT) on March 28th. Dollar value of the damage is estimated.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS BRO issued a tornado warning for this county at 07:06 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:21 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:30 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.

The Brownsville radar (KBRO), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:10 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2025 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.