EF0 tornado in Cameron County, Texas

Hurricane Hanna made landfall along the Kenedy county

coast on the evening of July 25, 2020. As Hanna pushed inland, its

eastern outer rain bands produced several areas of rotation. One

area of stronger rotation developed south of Brownsville just across

the Rio Grande in Mexico. The Brownsville radar briefly detected

a debris signature as it moved northward toward the Brownsville

airport. The Brownsville airport, in addition to residents in

nearby neighborhoods, reported wind damage.

The initial touchdown was discovered about 2.3 miles south

of Brownsville/South Padre Island International Airport. Here, an

empty tractor trailer was moved on an angle into a stand of trees,

an unanchored travel trailer was flipped, a storage shed was flattened,

and several mesquite trees lost large limbs. A few minutes later, several

areas of damage occurred on the west side of the Brownsville airport.

A dozen windows were blown out of an airplane hangar building, an

unanchored old jet staircase was flipped and a garage door

collapsed inward. In addition, a Boeing 737 aircraft was moved into a

hangar, causing damage to the hangar wall. No damage was noted to

the plane itself. As the tornado moved to the north northwest,

several large tree limbs were snapped, in addition to a weak

uprooted tree. Finally further north, two homes lost large sections

of their roofs with most walls still standing. The brief tornado

then lifted with no other tornado damage found.

Based on the survey and quality of construction materials surveyed, the tornado was rated EF0 with peak winds of 75 mph.

Hurricane Hanna, the 2020 Atlantic season's first Hurricane, made landfall along the unpopulated Padre Island National Seashore on the mid-Kenedy County coastline as a Category 1 storm at around 5 PM Central Time Saturday, July 25th, carrying sustained 90 mph winds with gusts over 100 mph in a small portion of the inner eye wall. The hurricane spun slowly but steadily into southern Kenedy and northern Hidalgo County through just after midnight on the 26th, then through Starr County as a Tropical Storm before moving into Tamaulipas before daybreak and eventually near Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, by noon before dissipating during the evening of the 26th. Following the passage of the inner eye wall, broad feeder bands of torrential rains and gusty tropical storm force winds continued through the mid to late morning hours of July 26th, slowly migrating from east to west across the populated Rio Grande Valley.

Other than storm surge flooding, which peaked just north of Baffin Bay on the Kleberg and Nueces County coast near Corpus Christi, Hanna's memory for the Rio Grande Valley will be flooding rainfall, power outages, and an array of damage to poorly constructed buildings, from minor roof damage to complete demolition. Between 8 and 15 inches of rain fell from Port Mansfield to Harlingen, and along Interstate Highway 2 out through Mission and Sullivan City. The combination of high rainfall, locally high rainfall rates, and poor drainage left between 18 inches and four feet of water depth in many areas, most commonly from western Cameron through southeastern Hidalgo County, as well as a separate pocket in the Mission/La Joya/Sullivan City area. The rainfall wiped out 95% of the region's cotton crop; the combination of crop loss and production loss was more than one third of a billion dollars alone ($366 million)...most of which was in the Rio Grande Valley region.

At the peak of the storm, 250 thousand electric customers were without power, including all of Willacy County. Though storm surge was cut short by strong westerly flow across Cameron County, radiating swells did produce a notable surge of 3 feet or greater (estimated) from near Port Mansfield through Kenedy County. When the damage and economic loss is counted to infrastructure and agriculture combined, it is likely that Hanna cost at least one billion dollars across the Rio Grande Valley and the Deep S. Texas ranch country.