F1 tornado, Gravette, Arkansas, March 30, 1998

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. F3158 to 206 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

F1

Date

March 30, 1998

Touchdown

8:25 PM CST (02:25 UTC)

Path length

1.2 miles (1.9 km)

Path width

130 yards (119 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Benton County

Touchdown point

36.400, -94.450

Lift-off point

36.420, -94.430

Record number

53

A solid line of thunderstorms covering the entire north-south length of Oklahoma, associated with a cold front and wave of low pressure, moved into western Arkansas around 800 PM on the evening of March 30. The part of the line moving out of eastcentral Oklahoma had a bow echo signature as it moved into Arkansas, causing many reports of severe tstm winds. At the north end of this bow echo in Benton County, an F1 tornado formed near Gravette, causing considerable damage on the south and east sides of town.

Considerable damage was reported with an F1 tornado and thunderstorm winds that blew through Gravette. Three homes in the area were damaged when large trees blew over. One of the houses' occupants described the storm as sounding like a freight train. Other homes had minor roof damage. High winds downed a power line, which left the east side of the city without power for about 35 to 40 minutes. Doors were blown out of the Hendren Plastics plant on Hwy. 72 in eastern Gravette. A tree was blown onto Hwy. 72 near Gravette, making travel impossible until it was removed around 10 pm. Another tree was blown across Ridge Road.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:52 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Tulsa radar (KINX), 104 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:27 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.