Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1981
F2 tornado, San Saba County, Texas, May 15, 1981
This F2 tornado ran 8.0 miles across San Saba County on May 15, 1981, touching down at 10:50 PM CDT and reaching 150 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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- F2
- Date
- May 15, 1981
- Touchdown
- 10:50 PM CDT (03:50 UTC)
- Path length
- 8.0 miles (12.9 km)
- Path width
- 150 yards (137 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- San Saba County
- Touchdown point
- 31.180, -98.950
- Lift-off point
- 31.170, -98.820
- Record number
- 210
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.
Stephenville/Cla, TX (KSEP), 00:00Z
3.8 hours before the tornado, 138 km from the path. May 16, 1981.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -9398 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 683 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 64 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 331 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 619 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 2.5
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.1 K/km
Stephenville/Cla, TX (KSEP), 12:00Z
8.2 hours after it, 138 km from the path. May 16, 1981.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -7697 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1395 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 275 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 651 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 2.6 K/km
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1981 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 15, 1981
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.