Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1996

F1 tornado, Blewitt, Texas, September 15, 1996

This F1 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Uvalde County on September 15, 1996, touching down at 1:15 AM 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 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
September 15, 1996
Touchdown
1:15 AM CDT (06:15 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Uvalde County
Touchdown point
29.130, -100.020
Lift-off point
29.150, -100.020
Record number
751

What the Weather Service recorded

Small tornado observed by several members of the public in an open area moving northeastward.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

19 minutes of warning. NWS EWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:56 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
05:56 UTC07:00 UTCTornado WarningEWX
07:05 UTC08:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningEWX
07:14 UTC10:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningEWX

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 05:37 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.

Del Rio, TX (KDRT), 00:00Z

6.3 hours before the tornado, 84 km from the path. September 15, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Del Rio, TX at 00:00Z on 1996-09-15Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1372 joules per kilogram, CIN -16, lifted condensation level 1184 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, Del Rio, TX at 00:00Z on 1996-09-15The 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 43 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
1372 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-16 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1710 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1184 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
43 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
106 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
243 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.8
Supercell composite
6.8
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Del Rio, TX (KDRT), 12:00Z

5.7 hours after it, 84 km from the path. September 15, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Del Rio, TX at 12:00Z on 1996-09-15Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 177 joules per kilogram, CIN -113, lifted condensation level 1124 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, Del Rio, TX at 12:00Z on 1996-09-15The 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 2 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 30 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
177 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-113 J/kg
Surface CAPE
550 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1124 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
2 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-2 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

The radar

The Laughlin AFB radar (KDFX), 29 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:13 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 September 15, 1996

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 152:45 AM CDTF2Uvalde, TX4.07001$20,000
September 158:45 AM CDTF1Falls, TX0.230$30,000
September 154:00 PM CDTF1Nevada, AR18.0333$30,000
September 155:10 PM CDTF1Calhoun, AR2.0200$200,000
September 156:50 PM CDTF0Johnson, AR0.120
September 156:21 PM PDTF0Clatsop, OR1.5601

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.