Tornadoes · United States · Oregon · 1996

F0 tornado, Seaside, Oregon, September 15, 1996

This F0 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Clatsop County on September 15, 1996, touching down at 6:21 PM PDT and reaching 60 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 1.

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 mphthis tornado

    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 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
F0
Date
September 15, 1996
Touchdown
6:21 PM PDT (01:21 UTC)
Path length
1.5 miles (2.4 km)
Path width
60 yards (55 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
1
County
Clatsop County
Touchdown point
46.050, -123.980
Lift-off point
46.050, -123.920
Record number
809

What the Weather Service recorded

A second waterspout formed off of the North Oregon Coast and moved ashore south of Astoria. The tornado crossed the Astoria Country Club, where it uprooted 2 trees and caused one minor injury to a club employee before dissipating east of highway 101.

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

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 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.

Salem/Mcnary, OR (KSLE), 00:00Z

1.4 hours before the tornado, 146 km from the path. September 16, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 00:00Z on 1996-09-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 24 joules per kilogram, CIN -33, lifted condensation level 1029 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, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 00:00Z on 1996-09-16The 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 33 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 14 knots.1939Sfc1 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
24 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-33 J/kg
Surface CAPE
478 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1029 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
33 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
28 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Salem/Mcnary, OR (KSLE), 12:00Z

10.6 hours after it, 146 km from the path. September 16, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 12:00Z on 1996-09-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 71 joules per kilogram, CIN -17, lifted condensation level 665 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, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 12:00Z on 1996-09-16The 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 117 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 38 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
71 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-17 J/kg
Surface CAPE
9 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
665 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
38 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
117 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
166 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Portland,OR radar (KRTX), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:21 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 1996 tornado in OregonEvery tornado in Oregon since 1950Warnings in force in Oregon nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of September 15, 1996

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 151:15 AM CDTF1Uvalde, TX0.5100
September 152:45 AM CDTF2Uvalde, TX4.07001$20,000
September 158:45 AM CDTF1Falls, TX0.230$30,000
September 154:00 PM CDTF1Nevada, AR18.0333$30,000
September 155:10 PM CDTF1Calhoun, AR2.0200$200,000
September 156:50 PM CDTF0Johnson, AR0.120

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.