Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1990

F0 tornado, Briscoe County, Texas, April 23, 1990

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Briscoe County on April 23, 1990, touching down at 7:35 PM CDT and reaching 60 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 23, 1990
Touchdown
7:35 PM CDT (00:35 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
60 yards (55 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Briscoe County
Touchdown point
34.550, -101.200
Record number
199

The warnings

20 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:15 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:41 UTC23:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningAMA
23:49 UTC00:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningAMA
00:15 UTC01:00 UTCTornado WarningAMA
01:07 UTC02:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningAMA

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 06:22 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.

Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 00:00Z

0.6 hours before the tornado, 88 km from the path. April 24, 1990.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 00:00Z on 1990-04-24Temperature 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 0, lifted condensation level NaN 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, Amarillo Airport, TX at 00:00Z on 1990-04-24The 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 106 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
NaN m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
106 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
124 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1990 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 23, 1990

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 233:04 PM CDTF0Swift, MN1.010
April 233:10 PM CDTF0Swift, MN12.010
April 235:10 PM EDTF0Hernando, FL0.510$500 to $5,000
April 234:30 PM PDTF0Placer, CA0.210$500 to $5,000
April 235:45 PM MDTF0Weber, UT0.1131$5,000 to $50,000
April 237:00 PM CDTF0Reagan, TX1.280
April 237:15 PM CDTF0Briscoe, TX1.370
April 2310:00 PM CDTF1Hancock, IA0.550$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.