Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1997

F0 tornado, Belton to Prairie Dell, Texas, May 27, 1997

Name: F0 tornado, Belton to Prairie Dell, Texas, May 27, 1997
Start: 1997-05-27T19:16:00.000Z
Location: Belton to Prairie Dell, Texas

From Belton to Prairie Dell, this F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Bell County on May 27, 1997, touching down at 2:16 PM CDT and reaching 40 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.

F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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 27, 1997
Touchdown: 2:16 PM CDT (19:16 UTC)
Path length: 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width: 40 yards (37 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
County: Bell County
Touchdown point: 31.080, -97.530
Lift-off point: 31.080, -97.530
Record number: 756

What the Weather Service recorded

Shortly after 200 pm, a small thunderstorm developed 8 WNW of Belton, a few miles ahead of the rear flank downdraft gust front associated with the large supercell that was moving into the northern portion of the county at this time. The initial weak circulation associated with the small thunderstorm deepened and strengthened as it moved to the east-southeast. The storm produced a weak tornado which lasted about 10 minutes before it was undercut by the rear flank downdraft of the larger storm.

Another short-lived tornado developed in the Lampasas River Valley, east of Stillhouse Dam.

The extremely severe supercell thunderstorm produced its sixth tornado about half a mile west of the Prairie Dell exit on I-35. The tornado was observed to be nearly stationary in a field for about 10 minutes then it moved quickly south-southwest. Trees were destroyed and several structures were damaged. The tornado dissipated near the location where County Road 304 crosses the Bell-Williamson County line. A short time later, a violent tornado developed and devastated the community of Jarrell in northern Williamson County.

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

The warnings

28 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:48 UTC, 28 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:30 UTC.

Issued (UTC)	Expired	Product	Office
18:48 UTC	19:30 UTC	Tornado Warning	FWD
19:30 UTC	20:15 UTC	Tornado Warning	FWD
20:15 UTC	21:00 UTC	Tornado Warning	FWD

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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:03 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 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.

Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 12:00Z

7.3 hours before the tornado, 196 km from the path. May 27, 1997.

Skew-T log-p

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.

Hodograph

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: 4281 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -43 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 3494 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 590 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 32 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 15 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 58 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.7
Supercell composite: 3.4
0-3 km lapse rate: 5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 00:00Z

4.7 hours after it, 196 km from the path. May 28, 1997.

Skew-T log-p

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.

Hodograph

Mixed-layer CAPE: 1247 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -121 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 2499 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1010 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 42 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 39 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 170 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.3
Supercell composite: 4.7
0-3 km lapse rate: 5.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the track Every 1997 tornado in Texas Every tornado in Texas since 1950 Warnings in force in Texas now The forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 27, 1997

24 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
May 27	1:55 AM CDT	F0	Craighead, AR	0.1	10
May 27	2:45 AM CDT	F1	Pulaski, AR	4.0	50			$200,000
May 27	2:48 AM CDT	F2	Cross, AR	0.2	23			$100,000
May 27	1:21 PM CDT	F2	McLennan, TX	2.0	73			$70,000
May 27	1:44 PM CDT	F0	McLennan, TX	0.2	40
May 27	1:46 PM CDT	F3	McLennan, TX	3.7	150			$150,000
May 27	2:27 PM CDT	F3	Bell, TX	1.4	273			$900,000
May 27	2:50 PM CDT	F1	Bell, TX	0.2	40
May 27	3:05 PM CDT	F1	Navarro, TX	0.5	50
May 27	3:07 PM CDT	F1	Bell, TX	2.4	100			$20,000
May 27	2:15 PM MDT	F0	Morgan, CO	0.1	50
May 27	3:25 PM CDT	F2	Williamson, TX	2.0	200
May 27	3:35 PM CDT	F2	Williamson, TX	0.5	150
May 27	3:36 PM CDT	F1	Navarro, TX	0.5	50
May 27	3:40 PM CDT	F5	Williamson, TX	5.1	650	27	12	$40 million
May 27	3:50 PM CDT	F0	Hill, TX	0.2	40
May 27	4:05 PM CDT	F3	Williamson, TX	9.2	200		15	$70 million
May 27	4:15 PM CDT	F1	Travis, TX	0.2	20			$10,000
May 27	4:50 PM CDT	F4	Travis, TX	5.6	440	1	5	$15 million
May 27	5:38 PM CDT	F1	Hays, TX	3.5	60			$10,000
May 27	7:00 PM CDT	F0	Uvalde, TX	0.2	20
May 27	7:30 PM CDT	F0	Kendall, TX	0.7	30
May 27	8:20 PM CDT	F0	Frio, TX	1.0	40
May 27	11:10 PM CDT	F0	Madison, MS	0.5	30

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.