F0 tornado, Reese, Michigan, August 26, 1999

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.

Rating

F0

Date

August 26, 1999

Touchdown

5:20 PM EDT (21:20 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Tuscola County

Touchdown point

43.450, -83.670

Lift-off point

43.450, -83.670

Record number

587

It seemed like an rather normal weather day in southeast Michigan. Scattered light rain showers were occurring in the Saginaw Valley and Thumb regions, thanks to somewhat cooler air aloft and just a touch of daytime heating.Chief Meteorologist Mark Torregrossa of Channel 5 out of Saginaw was in Reese that afternoon. He was doing the weather forecast live on location, as part of the weekly "Weather Garden" segment. While Mark was on-the-air live, a snake-like funnel cloud developed behind him - to the point where a viewer at home could see it, while Mark could not. The cameraman saw it, though, and directed Mark's attention to it. The funnel persisted for 13 minutes, and made a very brief touchdown in a bean field, doing no damage. This was rated an F0 tornado - the weakest rating on the Fujita scale. It probably did not produce winds to even 50 mph.A few other funnel clouds appeared in the region during the afternoon, with no other touchdowns observed. The origins of the tornado are difficult to pin down, since weather conditions were not particularly suited to either cold air funnels, or landspouts. Land-lake temperatures were relatively close, implying that lake breezes were probably not a contributing factor.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:04 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.

Saginaw (MBS), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Detroit radar (KDTX), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:18 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 MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.