Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1998

F0 tornado, Hart, Texas, April 26, 1998

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Castro County on April 26, 1998, touching down at 2:20 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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
April 26, 1998
Touchdown
2:20 PM CDT (19:20 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Castro County
Touchdown point
34.380, -102.030
Lift-off point
34.380, -102.030
Record number
871

What the Weather Service recorded

A round of severe thunderstorms affected the South Plains on the 26th. The most significant storm was the one that hit Hale Center (see above) and caused a lightning fatality and tornado damage. Elsewhere, large hail was reported near Friona, Cone, Aspermont, and Jayton.

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

The warnings

20 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:00 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:35 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
18:13 UTC19:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLUB
19:00 UTC19:35 UTCTornado WarningLUB

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 10:54 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), 12:00Z

7.3 hours before the tornado, 99 km from the path. April 26, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 12:00Z on 1998-04-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -204, lifted condensation level 1762 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 1998-04-26The 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 30 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 49 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-204 J/kg
Surface CAPE
21 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1762 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
49 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
30 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-1 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

4.7 hours after it, 99 km from the path. April 27, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Amarillo Airport, TX at 00:00Z on 1998-04-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -10843, lifted condensation level 638 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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 1998-04-27The 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 147 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-10843 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
638 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
147 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
231 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 26, 1998

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 261:30 AM CDTF1Saline, AR16.5150
April 262:25 PM CDTF2Hale, TX0.330$100,000
April 263:40 PM CDTF0Crosby, TX0.130
April 264:14 PM CDTF0Shackelford, TX0.130
April 264:49 PM CDTF0Shackelford, TX0.130$2,000
April 265:29 PM CDTF0Haskell, TX0.130
April 265:35 PM CDTF1Clay, TX0.2502$50,000
April 265:55 PM CDTF0Coryell, TX0.130
April 266:45 PM CDTF0Coryell, TX0.130

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.