Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1989

F1 tornado, Brown County, Texas, June 10, 1989

This F1 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Brown County on June 10, 1989, touching down at 5:50 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 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    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
F1
Date
June 10, 1989
Touchdown
5:50 PM CDT (22:50 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Brown County
Touchdown point
31.680, -98.800
Record number
532

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:26 UTC22:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningFWD
22:35 UTC23:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningFWD
23:06 UTC00:15 UTCTornado WarningFWD
00:46 UTC04:45 UTCFlash Flood WarningFWD
01:32 UTC02:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningFWD

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 07:05 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.

Stephenville/Cla, TX (KSEP), 12:00Z

10.8 hours before the tornado, 89 km from the path. June 10, 1989.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Stephenville/Cla, TX at 12:00Z on 1989-06-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 597 joules per kilogram, CIN -119, lifted condensation level 723 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, Stephenville/Cla, TX at 12:00Z on 1989-06-10The 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 147 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 37 knots.193958Sfc1 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
597 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-119 J/kg
Surface CAPE
521 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
723 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
147 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
162 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.2
Supercell composite
4.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Stephenville/Cla, TX (KSEP), 00:00Z

1.2 hours after it, 89 km from the path. June 11, 1989.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Stephenville/Cla, TX at 00:00Z on 1989-06-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2669 joules per kilogram, CIN -90, lifted condensation level 984 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, Stephenville/Cla, TX at 00:00Z on 1989-06-11The 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 34 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 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
2669 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-90 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2831 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
984 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
34 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
30 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.2
Supercell composite
0.9
0-3 km lapse rate
5.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1989 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 10, 1989

18 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 1010:55 AM EDTF0Franklin, FL10.010
June 1011:21 AM EDTF0Wakulla, FL0.210
June 1011:21 AM EDTF0Wakulla, FL0.210
June 104:50 PM EDTF0Polk, FL0.210$5,000 to $50,000
June 105:00 PM EDTF0Polk, FL0.210$50 to $500
June 104:20 PM CDTF0Ector, TX18.0100
June 104:27 PM CDTF0Ector, TX7.0100
June 106:00 PM MDTF1Eddy, NM8.050
June 107:02 PM CDTF0Howard, TX2.090
June 107:30 PM CDTF0Scott, KS0.210
June 107:02 PM MDTF0Lea, NM3.023
June 108:15 PM CDTF0Wichita, KS0.210
June 108:15 PM CDTF0Wichita, KS0.210
June 108:24 PM CDTF0Hall, TX4.0110
June 108:29 PM CDTF1Washington, OK2.060
June 109:07 PM CDTF0Moore, TX2.5110
June 109:15 PM CDTF0Moore, TX3.0100
June 109:40 PM CDTF0Hutchinson, TX4.5120

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.