Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 1999

F0 tornado, Andale, Kansas, April 5, 1999

This F0 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Sedgwick County on April 5, 1999, touching down at 7:10 AM CDT and reaching 350 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 of property damage.

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
April 5, 1999
Touchdown
7:10 AM CDT (12:10 UTC)
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
350 yards (320 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$100,000
County
Sedgwick County
Touchdown point
37.780, -97.630
Lift-off point
37.800, -97.620
Record number
827

What the Weather Service recorded

Synoptic-scale high winds of 39-53kts with gusts to 63kts ripped across Central Kansas from mid-morning thru late afternoon. The high winds tore the roof off a modular building around 9:30 am at St. Francis Academy, 5 miles west of Salina. Building was unoccupied at time of the event. Tractor-trailers were overturned along I-70 in Saline County. In Russell County, several power poles were blown down causing power outages in and around Russell. Widespread damage to houses, primarily to roofs and guttering, occurred throughout the county.

Weak tornado, embedded in strong downburst winds, inflicted minor damage to 3 houses, 1 silo, 1 trailer and to numerous trees.

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
12:15 UTC13:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningICT
12:45 UTC13:15 UTCTornado WarningICT

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:06 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.

Lamont, OK (KLMN), 12:00Z

0.2 hours before the tornado, 131 km from the path. April 5, 1999.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lamont, OK at 12:00Z on 1999-04-05Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1211 joules per kilogram, CIN -3, lifted condensation level 593 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, Lamont, OK at 12:00Z on 1999-04-05The 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 1513 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 139 knots.1939587897117136156175Sfc1 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
1211 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-3 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1491 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
593 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
139 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
70 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
1513 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
1962 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
14.2
Supercell composite
52.4
0-3 km lapse rate
6.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Wichita radar (KICT), 22 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:12 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 KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 5, 1999

25 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 54:15 AM CDTF1Alfalfa, OK7.0200$60,000
April 54:45 AM CDTF0Harper, KS2.00$30,000
April 55:10 AM CDTF0Major, OK0.10
April 55:30 AM CDTF0Garfield, OK0.10
April 55:50 AM CDTF0Grant, OK3.0100$10,000
April 56:03 AM CDTF1McClain, OK3.00$40,000
April 57:40 AM CDTF0Sedgwick, KS2.050$2.0 million
April 59:45 AM CDTF0Wagoner, OK0.50$40,000
April 51:30 PM CDTF0Marshall, KS5.080$60,000
April 51:49 PM CDTF1Nemaha, KS1.0801$100,000
April 52:12 PM CDTF1Nemaha, KS10.0100$350,000
April 52:28 PM CDTF0Richardson, NE0.020$10,000
April 52:32 PM CDTF0Richardson, NE0.040$3,000
April 52:38 PM CDTF1Richardson, NE0.160$10,000
April 52:40 PM CDTF0Brown, KS0.1100
April 52:45 PM CDTF0Richardson, NE1.580$4,000
April 53:59 PM CDTF0Fillmore, NE0.210
April 54:02 PM CDTF1Taylor, IA3.00$100,000
April 54:28 PM CDTF0Taylor, IA0.220$2,000
April 55:44 PM CDTF0Warren, IA0.220$1,000
April 56:05 PM CDTF2Sharp, AR7.001$10,000
April 56:20 PM CDTF0Massac, IL0.2401$10,000
April 57:08 PM CDTF2Randolph, AR2.0200$2.0 million
April 57:30 PM CDTF2McDonough, IL9.4100$10,000
April 57:38 PM CDTF1Ripley, MO1.0250$30,000

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.