F1 tornado, Seminole, Texas, April 10, 1997

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.

Rating

F1

Date

April 10, 1997

Touchdown

5:21 PM CDT (22:21 UTC)

Path length

2.2 miles (3.5 km)

Path width

130 yards (119 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Gaines County

Touchdown point

32.670, -102.480

Lift-off point

32.720, -102.450

Record number

701

The beginnings of a monster storm were in western Andrews County along the dry line and began moving to the northeast. Just after leaving Seminole in central Gaines County this storm became a supercell and turned almost straight east. According to the KMAF 88D average storm movement was 221 degrees at 26 kt, but this supercell turned and slowed to 268 degrees at 14 kt (47 degrees to the right at 54% speed). The storm continued into the Texas South Plains where it produced numerous other tornadoes and caused one fatality.The environment for the storms according to the rawinsonde sounding that evening on the SHARP workstation showed a buoyancy of about 2800 J/kg for the best lifted parcel and 1700 J/kg for a mean low level parcel. A cap of 65 J/kg kept other storms from forming in the area.

The first tornado of this supercell formed just south of U.S. Highway 180 and moved to the ENE for much of its life, then veered sharply to the north as it roped-out crossing the highway. Two telephone poles were downed along the highway--one holding a transformer.

This second tornado was spawned about two miles east of were tornado #1 dissipated. This tornado tracked to the northeast and overturned two center-pivot irrigation systems. The second system looked as if a couple of sections had become airborne from the resulting damage which snapped off a large wheel.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS MAF issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:14 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:50 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 07:03 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 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.

The Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:19 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

17 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.