Tornadoes · United States · Minnesota · 1998
F1 tornado, Avoca to Fulda, Minnesota, March 29, 1998
From Avoca to Fulda, this F1 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Murray County on March 29, 1998, touching down at 3:55 PM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 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
- March 29, 1998
- Touchdown
- 3:55 PM CST (21:55 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $50,000
- County
- Murray County
- Touchdown point
- 43.830, -95.670
- Lift-off point
- 43.830, -95.670
- Record number
- 67
What the Weather Service recorded
A strong tornado which began in Murray County tracked across Cottonwood County and then further northeast. The tornado destroyed numerous farms, farm equipment, buildings, trees, power lines and poles, vehicles, and other structures in its path. A vehicle was tossed a hundred yards as it hit the first farm in southwest Cottonwood County. People in the basement of the house on this farm received minor injuries. The tornado also destroyed a church near Jeffers, and destroyed numerous homes in the southern part of Comfrey, a city which is only partly in Cottonwood County.
A tornado damaged trees and destroyed old farm buildings.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
46 minutes of warning. NWS FSD issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:09 UTC, 46 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:09 UTC | 22:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | FSD |
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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 11:07 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.
Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 12:00Z
9.9 hours before the tornado, 200 km from the path. March 29, 1998.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -70152 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 551 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 46 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 18 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 160 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 251 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 00:00Z
2.1 hours after it, 200 km from the path. March 30, 1998.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 625 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -97 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 529 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 79 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 499 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 565 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 5.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.4 K/km
The surface observations
Worthington (OTG), 21 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:09 UTC | 62.6 | 59 | 150° 14 kt | 996.3 | ||
| 20:30 UTC | 64.4 | 60.8 | 160° 15 kt | 995.6 | ||
| 22:01 UTC | 69.8 | 55.4 | 200° 19 kt | 32 | 993.6 | |
| 22:30 UTC | 62.6 | 51.8 | 290° 14 kt | 19 | 994.9 | |
| 23:34 UTC | 64.4 | 57.2 | 250° 11 kt | 995.6 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Sioux Falls radar (KFSD), 89 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:53 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 1998 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 29, 1998
16 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 29 | 3:23 PM CST | F2 | Nobles, MN | 0.1 | 80 | $400,000 | ||
| March 29 | 3:25 PM CST | F0 | Nobles, MN | 0.1 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| March 29 | 3:28 PM CST | F0 | Nobles, MN | 0.1 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| March 29 | 3:35 PM CST | F2 | Nobles, MN | 0.1 | 80 | $200,000 | ||
| March 29 | 3:45 PM CST | F1 | Nobles, MN | 0.1 | 50 | $100,000 | ||
| March 29 | 3:50 PM CST | F4 | Murray, MN | 73.5 | 1,500 | 1 | 19 | $75 million |
| March 29 | 5:07 PM CST | F0 | Wabasha, MN | 1.5 | 50 | |||
| March 29 | 5:15 PM CST | F0 | Buffalo, WI | 4.0 | 50 | |||
| March 29 | 5:18 PM CST | F3 | Nicollet, MN | 12.0 | 2,200 | 1 | $120 million | |
| March 29 | 5:35 PM CST | F3 | Le Sueur, MN | 6.0 | 2,200 | |||
| March 29 | 5:48 PM CST | F2 | Le Sueur, MN | 17.0 | 1,760 | 2 | $20 million | |
| March 29 | 6:09 PM CST | F1 | Rice, MN | 0.1 | 200 | |||
| March 29 | 6:16 PM CST | F2 | Rice, MN | 5.0 | 440 | $20 million | ||
| March 29 | 6:25 PM CST | F2 | Dakota, MN | 3.0 | 440 | |||
| March 29 | 6:43 PM CST | F0 | Dakota, MN | 1.0 | 100 | |||
| March 29 | 7:28 PM CST | F0 | Lincoln, WI | 4.5 | 80 | $10,000 |
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.