Measuring the Magdalena tornado damage

MAGDALENA (KRQE) - Flying trees and ripped up fences, tossed up to 100 ft away - that's just some of what the National Weather Service found left by Sunday's tornado in Magdalena, New Mexico.

As tornado was coming toward Magdalena, something residents there haven't seen since the 1950's, Anne Marie Guin grabbed her camera and filmed the whole thing from her porch.

Guin was afraid it was going to sweep the whole town away. "The way it grew in size, it looked like it was a block over. It was a little scary," said Guin.

Now that the twister has passed, it's time to clear the wreckage.

Kerry Jones from the National Weather Service in Albuquerque was in Magdalena measuring the tornado's size which is determined by measuring the wind, plus the damage the twister caused.

At first glance it looks like it was tame, with minimal damage, but the 85-mile-per-hour winds could have been deadly if it was just one mile down the road, "A lot more populated areas closer to town, and certainly the impact would have been far more significant," said Jones.

Jones says a tornado along the mountainside isn't as rare as you might think. This one traveled three quarters of a mile and he thinks the base was about 50-yards wide.

He will take the measurements and use pictures and the videos to analyze how large the tornado really was, "It's not just the potential that the tornado might hit you, it's the hail and even more dangerous would be any more lightning."

Jones believe his calculations will show that the tornado was a EF-0. That's the mildest tornado on the scale that determines how intense a twister was. Good news for Guin who decided to film the tornado rather than run for cover.

"Where could I go, you know. If I'm on the back porch, I get to see it. If I go inside, I still might get hit and not get to see it," said Guin.

Jones says the last time a tornado was recorded in New Mexico was just north of Roswell in October of 2010.