Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 1997

F0 tornado, Dodge City, Kansas, May 29, 1997

This F0 tornado ran 1.7 miles across Ford County on May 29, 1997, touching down at 3:42 PM CDT 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 mphthis tornado

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

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    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
F0
Date
May 29, 1997
Touchdown
3:42 PM CDT (20:42 UTC)
Path length
1.7 miles (2.7 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Ford County
Touchdown point
37.800, -100.080
Lift-off point
37.780, -100.070
Record number
1042

What the Weather Service recorded

Very brief tornado filmed by chaser.

Two brief tornadoes filmed by chaser.

Fifth tornado filmed by chaser.

Tornado filmed by another chaser.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:35 UTC21:20 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningDDC
21:11 UTC22:00 UTCTornado WarningDDC
21:24 UTC22:10 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningDDC
21:48 UTC23:50 UTCFlash Flood WarningDDC
21:57 UTC23:50 UTCFlash Flood WarningDDC
22:07 UTC22:55 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningDDC
22:16 UTC22:50 UTCTornado WarningDDC

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 06:00 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.

Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z

8.7 hours before the tornado, 16 km from the path. May 29, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 1997-05-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 44 joules per kilogram, CIN -133, lifted condensation level 877 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, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 1997-05-29The 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 105 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 49 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
44 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-133 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
877 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
49 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
105 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
122 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z

3.3 hours after it, 16 km from the path. May 30, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 1997-05-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 36 joules per kilogram, CIN -86, lifted condensation level 560 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, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 1997-05-30The 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 0 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 0 knots.1939Sfc1 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
36 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-86 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
560 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
0 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
0 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
0 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
0 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 10 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:40 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 KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 29, 1997

10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 293:29 PM CDTF0Ford, KS0.220
May 293:31 PM CDTF0Ford, KS0.330
May 293:31 PM CDTF0Ford, KS0.230
May 293:39 PM CDTF0Ford, KS0.540
May 293:58 PM CDTF0Ford, KS0.220
May 295:00 PM CDTF0Ford, KS5.0100
May 298:55 PM CDTF0Woodward, OK0.110
May 299:55 PM CDTF0Randall, TX0.123
May 2910:04 PM CDTF0Carson, TX0.350
May 2910:12 PM CDTF0Randall, TX0.123

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.