Tornadoes · United States · Tennessee · 1998

F0 tornado, Leoma, Tennessee, April 8, 1998

This F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Lawrence County on April 8, 1998, touching down at 7:00 PM CDT and reaching 200 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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
April 8, 1998
Touchdown
7:00 PM CDT (00:00 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
200 yards (183 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Lawrence County
Touchdown point
35.170, -87.350
Lift-off point
35.170, -87.350
Record number
922

What the Weather Service recorded

SKYWARN Spotter identified a tornado. The tornado blew down trees.

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

The warnings

19 minutes of warning. NWS OHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:41 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
09:07 UTC09:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOHX
16:51 UTC17:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOHX
17:25 UTC18:15 UTCTornado WarningOHX
23:00 UTC23:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOHX
23:29 UTC00:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOHX
23:41 UTC00:15 UTCTornado WarningOHX
00:50 UTC01:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOHX

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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:55 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.

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z

0.0 hours before the tornado, 126 km from the path. April 9, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 1998-04-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1032 joules per kilogram, CIN -44, lifted condensation level 1081 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, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 1998-04-09The 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 223 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 63 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 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
1032 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-44 J/kg
Surface CAPE
841 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1081 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
63 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
223 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
297 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.5
Supercell composite
8.2
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 12:00Z

12.0 hours after it, 126 km from the path. April 9, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 1998-04-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 45 joules per kilogram, CIN -1, lifted condensation level 731 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, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 1998-04-09The 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 32 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 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
45 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-1 J/kg
Surface CAPE
80 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
731 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
32 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
220 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 8, 1998

13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 84:40 AM CDTF0Hays, TX0.5100
April 84:57 AM CDTF0Hays, TX1.0150
April 87:43 AM CDTF1Claiborne Parish, LA0.2400$70,000
April 810:20 AM CDTF1Covington, AL0.130$30,000
April 86:20 PM CDTF0Crittenden, AR0.530$1,000
April 87:01 PM CDTF3Pickens, AL19.53001$820,000
April 87:42 PM CDTF5Oak Grove–Birmingham tornado, AL30.31,32032259$200 million
April 88:00 PM CDTF1Coffee, TN1.0200$50,000
April 88:23 PM CDTF1DeKalb, AL1.8100$100,000
April 88:56 PM CDTF2St. Clair, AL14.4200212$2.0 million
April 811:30 PM EDTF1Haralson, GA3.5200$300,000
April 812:20 AM EDTF2Cobb, GA3.52004$25 million
April 812:35 AM EDTF2DeKalb, GA19.0800110$75 million

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.