EF0 Tornado — Manati, Puerto Rico

2016-11-18 · near Manati, Manati, Puerto Rico

Event narrative

A Tornado was reported at the urban area of Manati. Among the structural damages identified were weak structures in a highly populated area, structural damages due to flying debris, galvanized roofs and medium to large size trees were ripped off.

Wider weather episode

Copious amount of tropical moisture trailing a tropical wave, moving across the Mona Passage along with a pre-frontal trough and a frontal boundary just to the Northwest of the region, allowed for deep pooling of moisture across the region. A polar trough moving across the Western Atlantic continued to erode ridge aloft as it moved eastward across the region today. This scenario allowed for favorable upper level dynamics and strong divergent aloft. The combination of a humid environment, a Southeast steering flow and surface convergence were more than enough to provide support for enhanced and near severe convection across portions of the islands.

The prevailing S-SE steering flow with a S-SW shear aloft provided the forcing and lift needed to create the convective eddies (rotation) over the Mountain Range and into the low to mid levels of the atmosphere. This led to the horizontal rotating column of air to combine with the increasing updraft from the Squall line activity, which eventually led to the funnel cloud formation and finally to a Touchdown funnel rotation Tornado in the Manat urban area.

Preliminary information from the NWS indicates that the tornado that tore through the municipality of Manat was an EF-0 tornado. This tornado hit the ground at some point in the urbanization of Flamboyn around 3:10 p.m. and moved northwest through Road #2 with flying debris and strong winds reported over the urbanization of Atenas. The tornado dissipated about 10 minutes later, leaving minor damages through its path.

After the survey was done, the area most affected by the strong winds associated to this tornado was over the urbanization of Flamboyn, where several downed trees were reported. Large trees were reported fallen on Calle 2, and another at Calle Marginal. Also, on road 669, a cyclone fence was torn down by the strong winds and a building lost the roof. On Calle 22, two houses lost their tin roof porches. There was several damage reports over vehicles due to the flying debris associated to the tornado, affecting mainly the urbanization of Atenas.

Based on damages and actual reports, the NWS survey team believes winds associated to this tornado could have reached 50 to 75 miles per hour.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (18.4300, -66.4825)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 666193. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.