Tornadoes · United States · Montana · 1961
F4 tornado, Dawson County, Montana, June 29, 1961
This F4 tornado ran 15.9 miles across Dawson County on June 29, 1961, touching down at 4:15 PM GMT-7 and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 1, and did $500,000 to $5 million 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 mph
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 mphthis tornado
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
- F4, estimated from the damage record rather than surveyed
- Date
- June 29, 1961
- Touchdown
- 4:15 PM GMT-7 (23:15 UTC)
- Path length
- 15.9 miles (25.6 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 1
- Property damage
- $500,000 to $5 million
- County
- Dawson County
- Touchdown point
- 47.100, -104.700
- Lift-off point
- 47.220, -104.400
- Record number
- 469
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.
Glasgow Intl Airport, MT (KGGW), 12:00Z
11.3 hours before the tornado, 193 km from the path. June 29, 1961.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 29 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -503 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2469 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 76 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 19 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 220 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 348 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
Glasgow Intl Airport, MT (KGGW), 00:00Z
0.7 hours after it, 193 km from the path. June 30, 1961.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1190 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -106 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 822 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2341 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 72 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 4 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 34 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 331 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 4.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.8 K/km
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1961 tornado in MontanaEvery tornado in Montana since 1950Warnings in force in Montana nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 29, 1961
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.