F3 tornado, Ord, Nebraska, June 3, 1999

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

F3

Date

June 3, 1999

Touchdown

11:20 PM CDT (04:20 UTC)

Path length

14.0 miles (22.5 km)

Path width

1,000 yards (914 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.5 million

County

Valley County

Touchdown point

41.600, -99.170

Lift-off point

41.700, -98.930

Record number

447

Late in the evening of June 3rd, a severe thunderstorm produced a large tornado across northwest Valley county. The thunderstorm entered the western part of the county around 11 pm. Shortly thereafter, the tornado touched down 12 miles west of Ord and snaked its way northeast before lifting after midnight about 7 miles north of Ord. This F3 tornado had a damage path almost one-half mile wide at one point. It completely destroyed two farmsteads and damaged two others along its path. At the two destroyed farmsteads, residents took shelter in the basement upon warning. The tornado tossed cars and farm equipment up to 300 feet, strewn irrigation pipe across the countryside and killed livestock. The two destroyed homes were completely wiped from the foundation. However, given sufficient warning, no one in the storms path was injured or killed.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:18 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:15 UTC.

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 01:05 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.

The North Platte radar (KLNX), 131 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:18 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 NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

15 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.