Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1997

F1 tornado, Mc Lean, Texas, June 11, 1997

This F1 tornado ran 4.0 miles across Gray County on June 11, 1997, touching down at 8:47 PM CDT and reaching 200 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
June 11, 1997
Touchdown
8:47 PM CDT (01:47 UTC)
Path length
4.0 miles (6.4 km)
Path width
200 yards (183 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Gray County
Touchdown point
35.230, -100.620
Lift-off point
35.180, -100.570
Record number
962

What the Weather Service recorded

Tornado remained over open country and track was estimated.

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

The warnings

3 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:44 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
01:44 UTC02:45 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:24 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

1.8 hours before the tornado, 100 km from the path. June 12, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 00:00Z on 1997-06-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 875 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 2722 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 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 1997-06-12The 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 42 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 12 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
875 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1411 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2722 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
12 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
42 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
104 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.8
0-3 km lapse rate
9.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 12:00Z

10.2 hours after it, 100 km from the path. June 12, 1997.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 12:00Z on 1997-06-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 77 joules per kilogram, CIN -423, lifted condensation level 1988 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 1997-06-12The 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 43 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 7 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
77 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-423 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1988 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
43 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
27 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
3.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:47 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

The other tornadoes of June 11, 1997

21 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 1111:40 AM MDTF0Crook, WY0.110
June 112:20 PM EDTF0Lee, FL0.210$20,000
June 111:45 PM CDTF0LaSalle, IL1.030
June 112:25 PM CDTF0Mellette, SD0.110
June 113:35 PM MDTF0Greeley, KS1.5100
June 113:38 PM MDTF0Kiowa, CO0.250
June 116:40 PM EDTF0Polk, FL0.110$20,000
June 116:20 PM CDTF1Wheeler, TX2.0100
June 116:39 PM CDTF0Wheeler, TX0.123
June 116:46 PM CDTF3Wheeler, TX9.060013$1.7 million
June 117:39 PM CDTF0Sherman, NE0.523
June 117:49 PM CDTF1Collingsworth, TX0.5200
June 118:09 PM CDTF0Collingsworth, TX0.550
June 118:22 PM CDTF0Collingsworth, TX0.123
June 118:25 PM CDTF1Hall, NE6.073$750,000
June 118:50 PM CDTF0Hall, NE0.523
June 118:58 PM CDTF1Donley, TX1.0200
June 1110:04 PM CDTF0Graham, KS0.150
June 1110:10 PM CDTF1Collingsworth, TX9.0100
June 1110:14 PM CDTF0Jones, TX0.113
June 1110:26 PM CDTF0Jones, TX0.113

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.