EF0 tornado in Upton County, Texas

Tornado March 28, 2017 · Upton County, Texas

EF0

Rating

5.8 mi

Whole path

75 yd

Path width

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Upton County → Glasscock County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 75 yards (0.04 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

Trained spotters viewed and took images of a tornado that developed two miles east of the community of Midkiff along Farm to Market Road 2401 and continued northeastward into open fields in extreme southwest portions of Glasscock County. The tornado was narrow, perhaps 50 to 75 yards in width. No damage was found with this tornado, which travelled along a path for approximately 5.5 miles. After being viewed by a damage survey team, this tornado was rated as an EF-0.

The wider storm

A deep upper low was over New Mexico with strong lift and instability over southeast New Mexico and West Texas. There was a dryline and cold front that moved across the area, and there was a lot of wind shear in the atmosphere. Good moisture was present to the east of the dryline. This combination of moisture, lift, instability, and wind shear contributed to thunderstorms that produced large hail, severe wind gusts, and tornadoes.

Began near Midkiff (31.6318, -101.8159).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF2 Glasscock County EF0 Mitchell County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 681226. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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