Tornadoes · United States · Montana · 1988

F1 tornado, Beaverhead County, Montana, July 3, 1988

This F1 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Beaverhead County on July 3, 1988, touching down at 4:30 PM MDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $500 to $5,000 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
July 3, 1988
Touchdown
4:30 PM MDT (22:30 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$500 to $5,000
County
Beaverhead County
Touchdown point
45.370, -113.420
Record number
305

The warnings

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:12 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.

Great Falls, MT (KGTF), 12:00Z

10.5 hours before the tornado, 285 km from the path. July 3, 1988.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Great Falls, MT at 12:00Z on 1988-07-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -1811, lifted condensation level 2313 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Great Falls, MT at 12:00Z on 1988-07-03The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 18 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 46 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-1811 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2313 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
46 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
18 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
50 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Great Falls, MT (KGTF), 00:00Z

1.5 hours after it, 285 km from the path. July 4, 1988.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Great Falls, MT at 00:00Z on 1988-07-04Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 34 joules per kilogram, CIN -255, lifted condensation level 2281 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Great Falls, MT at 00:00Z on 1988-07-04The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -110 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 62 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
34 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-255 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1329 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2281 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
62 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-110 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
6 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.4
0-3 km lapse rate
7.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1988 tornado in MontanaEvery tornado in Montana since 1950Warnings in force in Montana nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 3, 1988

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 311:50 AM CDTF1Brown, TX0.210
July 312:28 PM CDTF1Eastland, TX0.210

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.