Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1996

F0 tornado, Mobeetie, Texas, May 9, 1996

This F0 tornado ran 5.0 miles across Wheeler County on May 9, 1996, touching down at 6:59 PM CDT and reaching 100 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
May 9, 1996
Touchdown
6:59 PM CDT (23:59 UTC)
Path length
5.0 miles (8.0 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Wheeler County
Touchdown point
35.520, -100.520
Lift-off point
35.520, -100.430
Record number
935

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
23:42 UTC00:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningAMA
00:08 UTC01:00 UTCTornado WarningAMA
00:42 UTC01:30 UTCTornado 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:48 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), 12:00Z

12.0 hours before the tornado, 116 km from the path. May 9, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 12:00Z on 1996-05-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 598 joules per kilogram, CIN -474, lifted condensation level 2211 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, Amarillo Airport, TX at 12:00Z on 1996-05-09The 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 167 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 18 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
598 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-474 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1189 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2211 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
167 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
216 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

0.0 hours before the tornado, 116 km from the path. May 10, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 00:00Z on 1996-05-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 8 joules per kilogram, CIN -55, lifted condensation level 4475 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, Amarillo Airport, TX at 00:00Z on 1996-05-10The 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 24 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 23 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
8 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-55 J/kg
Surface CAPE
193 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
4475 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
24 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
7 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
9.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 116 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:57 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 9, 1996

18 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 91:50 AM CDTF1Appanoose, IA0.735$70,000
May 92:40 AM CDTF1Davis, IA2.050$70,000
May 93:47 AM CDTF0Monroe, IA1.030$10,000
May 99:13 AM CDTF0Iberia Parish, LA2.520
May 96:20 PM CDTF0Gray, TX0.125
May 97:15 PM CDTF0Cloud, KS0.1400
May 97:17 PM CDTF0Cloud, KS0.150
May 97:22 PM CDTF0Wheeler, TX0.120
May 97:31 PM CDTF0Wheeler, TX0.675
May 98:10 PM CDTF0Washington, KS0.250
May 98:41 PM CDTF0Mercer, IL0.125
May 98:50 PM CDTF2Washington, KS1.5100$300,000
May 98:55 PM CDTF0Marshall, KS0.220$10,000
May 99:00 PM CDTF0Warren, IL0.225
May 99:10 PM CDTF1Reno, KS0.550
May 99:25 PM CDTF0Marshall, KS0.115
May 99:32 PM CDTF1Nemaha, KS0.575$100,000
May 912:36 AM CDTF1Monroe, IA1.5602$380,000

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.