EF2 Tornado — Roosevelt, New Mexico

2007-03-23 · near Cameo, Roosevelt, New Mexico

Event narrative

Tornado with estimated peak winds of near 120 mph severely damaged the Portales City water well facility on State Road 202 about 5 miles east of Highway 70. The tornado moved north northwest destroying a new dairy before continuing northwest into Curry County. No injuries reported but storm debris briefly trapped a dairy employee. About 190 dairy cows either killed by the event or else sent to immediate slaughter due to injuries. Average width approximately 200 yards.

Wider weather episode

An unusually early and intense outbreak of severe storms with large hail and tornadoes occurred across east central and southeast New Mexico during the afternoon and evening of the 23rd. The average date for isolated first reports of damaging hail over the past 20 years has been March 24th with the location typically confined to far southeast New Mexico. The March 23rd 2007 episode produced a number of large hail events from Roswell to Tucumcari and peaked with multiple tornadoes from near Tatum north to Clovis and northeast of Tucumcari. A tornado at Clovis resulted in the death of two elderly citizens, the first tornado fatalities in New Mexico since October of 1974. The episode was characterized by a slow moving upper level low that produced strong speed shear but nearly uniform southerly directional flow aloft across the eastern and southeastern sections of the state. Storms with large hail developed first during early and mid afternoon from near Roswell north to Tucumcari. Towards late afternoon and early evening as storms migrated north northeast they encountered an increasing but shallow easterly surface flow that enhanced low level shear resulting in brief but shallow tornadoes. Multiple small but elevated vortices were observed circulating around well defined wall clouds with occasional spin downs into brief tornadoes.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.2402, -103.1651)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 20729. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.