F1 tornado, Carsonville to Port Sanilac, Michigan, April 16, 1998

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 16, 1998

Touchdown

4:57 PM EDT (20:57 UTC)

Path length

7.5 miles (12.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$350,000

County

Sanilac County

Touchdown point

43.370, -82.680

Lift-off point

43.430, -82.550

Record number

69

A warm front moved north into southern Michigan on the morning of the 16th, as an area of low pressure moved northeast into the southwest corner of the state. Plentiful sunshine during the afternoon allowed for rapid destablization, and a number of severe thunderstorms developed near the warm front. Thunderstorm activity was mostly multicellular in nature.The first severe thunderstorm of the day crossed Saginaw and Midland Counties, and produced dime-sized hail in the city of Saginaw. A car was struck by lightning just north of the Zilwaukee Bridge on I-75, damaging ham radio equipment and flattening a tire. A separate storm blew over a corn crib in eastern Shiawassee County, while spotters reported severe winds with another thunderstorm in Fenton. The Fenton storm then produced golfball-sized hail and downed trees east of Holly.A northwest-southeast oriented band of thunderstorms developed in the Thumb area, and these storms provided the majority of severe weather during the late afternoon hours. Most of the storms within this band were pulse-type storms, producing dime-sized hail and severe downbursts at isolated locations. A strong downburst took place in eastern Tuscola County, where a horse barn was leveled, trees were uprooted, siding of a nearby house and garage was damaged, and a children's swing set was wrapped around a tree. The same decaying storm moved into Evergreen Township in Sanilac County, where it heavily damaged a barn and tore the roofing off of a shed. An isolated storm behind this band produced some dime-sized hail in Lapeer.The southernmost storm of this band would become the most potent storm of the day. It acquired supercell characteristics as it moved east across Sanilac County. This storm first caused damage when it downed trees southeast of Sandusky. Rotation in the storm continued to intensify, and a tornado formed between Carsonville and Applegate - the first tornado in Sanilac County since September 2, 1984. The tornado had a continual damage path from its first touchdown until it moved out over Lake Huron at Port Sanilac. Ping-pong to golfball-sized hail preceded the tornado by a few minutes from Carsonville to Port Sanilac. Four homes, ten barns, five silos, and a grain bin were destroyed. Twelve homes and six barns were damaged. Significant damage was done to the public marina in Port Sanilac. Two hundred people were left without power overnight. There were no human casualties, but a horse had to be euthanised after it was seriously injured.The supercell storm put out an outflow boundary, and an isolated severe thunderstorm developed along this boundary after the supercell had moved out over the open lake. This last severe storm produced large hail along the St. Clair - Sanilac county line.

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

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 11:06 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 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.

Bad Axe (BAX), 52 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Detroit radar (KDTX), 104 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:07 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 1998 tornado in MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan nowThe forecast where you are

41 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.