Tornadoes · United States · Idaho · 1997
F0 tornado, Pocatello, Idaho, May 31, 1997
This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Bannock County on May 31, 1997, touching down at 4:55 PM MDT and reaching 20 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.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- F0
- Date
- May 31, 1997
- Touchdown
- 4:55 PM MDT (22:55 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Bannock County
- Touchdown point
- 42.850, -112.420
- Lift-off point
- 42.850, -112.420
- Record number
- 255
What the Weather Service recorded
Tornado briefly touched down on hillside east of Pocatello Drive-Inn Theatre
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
3 minutes of warning. NWS PIH issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:52 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:05 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PIH |
| 22:52 UTC | 23:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | PIH |
| 23:21 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | PIH |
| 01:14 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PIH |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:57 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.
Salt Lake City I, UT (KSLC), 12:00Z
10.9 hours before the tornado, 234 km from the path. May 31, 1997.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -1266 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2586 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 1 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 91 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
Salt Lake City I, UT (KSLC), 00:00Z
1.1 hours after it, 234 km from the path. June 1, 1997.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 826 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -13 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 947 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 3347 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 39 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 83 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 155 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 3.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 9.8 K/km
The radar
The Pocatello radar (KSFX), 36 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:52 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 1997 tornado in IdahoEvery tornado in Idaho since 1950Warnings in force in Idaho nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 31, 1997
10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 31 | 2:40 AM CDT | F0 | Kimble, TX | 0.1 | 13 | |||
| May 31 | 11:10 AM PDT | F0 | Marion, OR | 1.5 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| May 31 | 12:40 PM PDT | F1 | Lincoln, WA | 12.0 | 50 | $300,000 | ||
| May 31 | 1:45 PM PDT | F1 | Spokane, WA | 5.0 | 50 | $350,000 | ||
| May 31 | 2:05 PM PDT | F2 | Kootenai, ID | 5.0 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| May 31 | 2:10 PM PDT | F0 | Nez Perce, ID | 0.1 | 23 | |||
| May 31 | 5:30 PM EDT | F0 | Broward, FL | 0.1 | 23 | |||
| May 31 | 3:15 PM PDT | F1 | Pierce, WA | 0.5 | 10 | $150,000 | ||
| May 31 | 5:05 PM MDT | F1 | Jefferson, ID | 4.0 | 200 | |||
| May 31 | 5:45 PM PDT | F0 | Clark, WA | 0.5 | 20 | $10,000 |
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.