F1 tornado, College Spgs to Hepburn, Iowa, April 8, 1999

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

April 8, 1999

Touchdown

2:48 PM CDT (19:48 UTC)

Path length

9.0 miles (14.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Page County

Touchdown point

40.750, -95.000

Lift-off point

40.880, -94.950

Record number

259

Of the 12 tornadoes reported over eastern Nebraska and southwest Iowa on 4/8/99, this one produced the only injury, to a woman who suffered minor cuts due to flying glass. The tornado touched down just southwest of College Springs, tracked west of that town and then lifted just southwest of Clarinda. Several houses sustained strong f1 damage including one workshop that was destroyed. Much of the damage was due to flying corrugated steel and wood debris with roofs sustaining the most damage.

This tornado dissipated around the same time a longer tracked tornado formed near the Adams and Taylor county lines in southwest Iowa. In Page county the damage was relatively minor, however, much stronger damage was reported farther to the northeast.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:40 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:10 UTC.

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 High Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 17:13 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.

Clarinda (ICL), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 129 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:46 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 1999 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

46 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.