Tornadoes · United States · Maine · 1999
F1 tornado, Sweden, Maine, August 13, 1999
This F1 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Oxford County on August 13, 1999, touching down at 11:30 PM EDT. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
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
- F1
- Date
- August 13, 1999
- Touchdown
- 11:30 PM EDT (03:30 UTC)
- Path length
- 1.0 miles (1.6 km)
- Path width
- 0 yards (0 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $10,000
- County
- Oxford County
- Touchdown point
- 44.130, -70.820
- Lift-off point
- 44.130, -70.820
- Record number
- 619
What the Weather Service recorded
A late night tornado touched down just east of Little Pond in the town of Sweden at approximately 11:30 pm local time. The tornado crossed Knights Hill Road, passed near Black Mountain Cemetery, crossed Black Mountain Road, and ended near the top of Black Mountain. The damage path from the tornado was about a mile long and ranged in width from 100 to 900 ft. Hundreds of trees were either uprooted or snapped during the event. A home and a nearby utility shed were damaged from a falling tree.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The surface observations
Fryeberg (IZG), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Portland,ME radar (KGYX), 52 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:30 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 MaineEvery tornado in Maine since 1950Warnings in force in Maine nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of August 13, 1999
1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 13 | 9:30 PM EDT | F1 | Sullivan, NH | 8.0 | 250 | $100,000 |
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.