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EF0 tornado in Socorro County, New Mexico

Tornado July 15, 2020 · Socorro County, New Mexico

EF0
Rating
0.3 mi
Path length
30 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 30 yards (0.02 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

A fast-moving outflow boundary helped develop a dusty landspout tornado over rural Socorro County a few miles east of Veguita. No damage occurred as a result of this weak tornado.

The wider storm

As monsoonal moisture continued to stream into New Mexico, a backdoor cold front that moved through eastern NM helped set the stage for severe weather on July 15, 2020. With increasing low-level moisture, instability, and shear focused along this boundary, the storms that moved off the central mountain chain interacted with the boundary and intensified. Through the afternoon and evening hours, the storms grew upscale into a broken line that moved northeast through the eastern plains. Strong thunderstorm winds were reported ahead of these storms while large hail was reported near Capulin. A brief gustnado was also observed in rural Socorro County along a strong outflow boundary moving through the area.

Began near Veguita (34.5113, -106.7164).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 924936. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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