F1 tornado, Idabel, Oklahoma, February 11, 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 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.

Rating

F1

Date

February 11, 1999

Touchdown

10:30 AM CST (16:30 UTC)

Path length

0.9 miles (1.4 km)

Path width

0 yards (0 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$60,000

County

McCurtain County

Touchdown point

33.930, -94.800

Lift-off point

33.950, -94.780

Record number

133

The tornado, witnessed by dozens of people, touched down on new road construction, crossed the road and slammed into the ET Dunlap Center, peeled back the roof and destroyed the interior of the school as well as mangling a satellite dish. Six parked cars were pushed sideways into each other doing little damage. The tornado then moved across the Kiamichi Technology Center damaging the building before moving across Hwy 259 destroying several signs and bending three telephone pools to a 45 degree angle. The tornado then continued into a wooded region. The tornado was described by Randy Barton, an eyewitness, as an upside down bowl which came to a point on the ground. Several eyewitness were within 15 yards of the tornado. The school administrated said there would have been numerous injuries from a collapsing roof except one instructor called in sick cancelling class for the day and other classes were scheduled for just after the event.

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 11:21 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 Western Arkansas radar (KSRX), 155 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:31 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 OklahomaEvery tornado in Oklahoma since 1950Warnings in force in Oklahoma nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.