EF0 tornado, Mexican Hat, Utah, June 6, 2015

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

June 6, 2015

Touchdown

5:40 PM MDT (23:40 UTC)

Lifted

5:55 PM MDT (23:55 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

1.2 miles (2.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

San Juan County

Touchdown point

37.022, -109.777

Lift-off point

37.035, -109.761

Record number

1506061740-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GJT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A discrete single-cell storm produced a rare and highly visible tornado in southern San Juan County.

At 5:40 pm a rare tornado touched down near Comb Ridge east of Monument Valley in southeast Utah. The tornado drifted slowly to the northeast and roped out lasting approximately 15 minutes. No damage occurred as the tornado traveled over the open desert. This rare mesocyclonic tornado formed on the southwest corner of an uncommon long-lived, single-cell storm on the Colorado Plateau. The storm formed in far northwest Arizona and traveled over 75 miles before dissipating in western Colorado. Due to the high-visibility location of the storm near tourist attractions in Monument Valley, there were numerous eye-witness accounts and photos of this rare event. The tornado was photographed from over 25 miles away in some cases.

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

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.

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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.

Blanding (BDG), 67 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in UtahEvery tornado in Utah since 1950Warnings in force in Utah nowThe forecast where you are

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.