Tornadoes · United States · Arkansas · 1999

F1 tornado, Poyen, Arkansas, January 22, 1999

This F1 tornado ran 3.0 miles across Grant County on January 22, 1999, touching down at 2:25 AM CST and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
January 22, 1999
Touchdown
2:25 AM CST (08:25 UTC)
Path length
3.0 miles (4.8 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Grant County
Touchdown point
34.320, -92.650
Lift-off point
34.370, -92.630
Record number
119

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak tornado was spawned in western Grant County along a bow echo...or a boomerang shaped line of storms mostly noted for straight-line wind damage. The tornado moved through rural areas mostly north and west of Poyen, and caused minimal damage. Mostly tree damage was noted. The tornado dissipated about 3 miles north of Poyen.

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

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:49 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 air that afternoon

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.

Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 00:00Z

8.4 hours before the tornado, 232 km from the path. January 22, 1999.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1999-01-22Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 959 joules per kilogram, CIN -14, lifted condensation level 1162 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1999-01-22The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 204 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 47 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
959 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-14 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1440 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1162 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
47 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
204 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
299 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.1
Supercell composite
7.9
0-3 km lapse rate
6.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Hot Springs (HOT), 44 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Little Rock radar (KLZK), 65 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:26 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1999 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of January 22, 1999

42 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
January 2212:52 AM CSTF1Ballard, KY1.01006$200,000
January 221:00 AM CSTF1McCracken, KY1.31002$500,000
January 221:15 AM CSTF2Pope, IL1.5150$800,000
January 221:50 AM CSTF1Union Parish, LA to AR21.040$3,000
January 223:20 AM CSTF3Benton, TN15.022015$1.0 million
January 224:15 AM CSTF3Montgomery, TN4.38805$73 million
January 224:25 AM CSTF1Shelby, TN3.5100$300,000
January 224:43 AM CSTF2Humphreys, TN4.02201$500,000
January 225:02 AM CSTF0Red River Parish, LA10.70
January 225:10 AM CSTF0DeSoto, MS2.00$50,000
January 225:49 AM CSTF1Bienville Parish, LA20.50
January 225:52 AM CSTF1Jackson Parish, LA21.90
January 226:22 AM CSTF1Lincoln Parish, LA11.940
January 228:23 AM CSTF0Chicot, AR1.550
January 229:25 AM CSTF0Jefferson, MS1.050$3,000
January 229:45 AM CSTF0Claiborne, MS1.050$3,000
January 2210:15 AM CSTF0Hinds, MS1.050$3,000
January 2210:20 AM CSTF0Holmes, MS1.050$3,000
January 2210:30 AM CSTF0Newton, TX1.010$30,000
January 2210:40 AM CSTF0Vernon Parish, LA1.010$30,000
January 2210:58 AM CSTF0Hinds, MS1.050
January 2211:25 AM CSTF0Chester, TN0.110
January 2212:05 PM CSTF0Hardeman, TN0.110
January 2212:09 PM CSTF0Natchitoches Parish, LA3.00
January 2212:10 PM CSTF0Grant Parish, LA3.820
January 2212:35 PM CSTF1Alcorn, MS5.050$70,000
January 221:15 PM CSTF0Concordia Parish, LA1.050
January 222:32 PM CSTF0Carroll, MS1.050
January 222:40 PM CSTF0Warren, MS4.050$3,000
January 223:00 PM CSTF0Holmes, MS1.050
January 223:15 PM CSTF0Prentiss, MS0.220$10,000
January 223:39 PM CSTF0Franklin, AL0.330
January 223:43 PM CSTF0Colbert, AL1.030
January 224:43 PM CSTF0Morgan, AL0.330
January 224:52 PM CSTF0Fayette, AL0.230$10,000
January 225:10 PM CSTF1Bowie, TX0.30$40,000
January 225:10 PM CSTF0Lee, MS0.110
January 225:15 PM CSTF1Winston, AL1.50$90,000
January 225:15 PM CSTF0Pike, MS0.120$10,000
January 225:20 PM CSTF0Prentiss, MS0.110
January 225:45 PM CSTF0Lawrence, MS1.00$10,000
January 227:35 PM CSTF0Miller, AR3.60

What this means

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.

Sources

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