Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1979

F0 tornado, Midland County, Texas, August 17, 1979

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Midland County on August 17, 1979, touching down at 5:14 PM CDT and reaching 10 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
August 17, 1979
Touchdown
5:14 PM CDT (22:14 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Midland County
Touchdown point
31.930, -102.120
Record number
652

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.

Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 12:00Z

10.2 hours before the tornado, 8 km from the path. August 17, 1979.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Midland Regional, TX at 12:00Z on 1979-08-17Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 631 joules per kilogram, CIN -42, lifted condensation level 915 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, Midland Regional, TX at 12:00Z on 1979-08-17The 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 30 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 17 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
631 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-42 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1190 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
915 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
30 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
47 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 00:00Z

1.8 hours after it, 8 km from the path. August 18, 1979.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Midland Regional, TX at 00:00Z on 1979-08-18Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 203 joules per kilogram, CIN -95, lifted condensation level 1290 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, Midland Regional, TX at 00:00Z on 1979-08-18The 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 28 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
203 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-95 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1427 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1290 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-10 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
17 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-0.0
Supercell composite
-0.4
0-3 km lapse rate
6.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Midland Intl (MAF), 8 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:00 UTC6968240° 13 kt1021.7-TSRA
22:00 UTC6966300° 11 kt1020.3-SHRA
23:00 UTC7167300° 10 kt1020
00:00 UTC7267250° 8 kt1020.3

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1979 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 17, 1979

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 179:40 PM CDTF2Winnebago, IL0.550$50,000 to $500,000

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.