Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1968

F0 tornado, Smith County, Texas, May 17, 1968

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Smith County on May 17, 1968, touching down at 10:00 PM GMT-5 and reaching 13 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50 to $500 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 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
May 17, 1968
Touchdown
10:00 PM GMT-5 (03:00 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
13 yards (12 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$50 to $500
County
Smith County
Touchdown point
32.230, -95.170
Record number
246

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.

Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 00:00Z

3.0 hours before the tornado, 136 km from the path. May 18, 1968.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1968-05-18Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 11 joules per kilogram, CIN -185, lifted condensation level 823 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, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1968-05-18The 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 248 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 50 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
11 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-185 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
823 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
50 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
248 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
272 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 12:00Z

9.0 hours after it, 136 km from the path. May 18, 1968.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 12:00Z on 1968-05-18Temperature 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 -9660, lifted condensation level 941 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Shreveport, LA at 12:00Z on 1968-05-18The 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 -10 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 48 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-9660 J/kg
Surface CAPE
17 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
941 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
48 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
2 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-10 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
39 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Tyler/Pounds Field (TYR), 26 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
01:00 UTC6260300° 5 ktFZFG DZ
02:00 UTC6260310° 8 ktDZ
03:00 UTC6159330° 8 ktFZFG DZ
04:00 UTC6159330° 9 kt

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1968 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 17, 1968

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 1711:00 AM GMT-5F1Coryell, TX1.017
May 176:00 PM GMT-4F2Darlington, SC1.0201$500 to $5,000
May 179:30 PM GMT-5F0Van Zandt, TX0.813$50 to $500

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.