Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1997

F0 tornado, Port Arthur, Texas, July 14, 1997

This F0 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Jefferson County on July 14, 1997, touching down at 4:05 PM CDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 3, and did $50,000 of property damage.

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
July 14, 1997
Touchdown
4:05 PM CDT (21:05 UTC)
Path length
1.5 miles (2.4 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
3
Property damage
$50,000
County
Jefferson County
Touchdown point
29.900, -93.930
Lift-off point
29.900, -93.930
Record number
386

What the Weather Service recorded

A small tornado formed along a thunderstorm outflow, tearing through the Chevron Oil Plant. Three men received minor bumps and scrapes when hit by debris from the tornado. The tornado move east to west, and dissipated in the bayous behind the plant. Severe thunderstorm winds that preced the tornado also blew throughout the city of Port Arthur, resulting in numerous trees and power lines down.

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

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.

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 12:00Z

9.1 hours before the tornado, 74 km from the path. July 14, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 1997-07-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 3168 joules per kilogram, CIN -13, lifted condensation level 599 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, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 1997-07-14The 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 26 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 21 knots.1939Sfc1 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
3168 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-13 J/kg
Surface CAPE
594 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
599 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
4 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
26 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
21 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.8
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Beaumont - Port Arthur (BPT), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Lake Charles radar (KLCH), 73 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:02 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 1997 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

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.