Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1998

F1 tornado, Rosewood, Texas, August 3, 1998

This F1 tornado ran 0.7 miles across Upshur County on August 3, 1998, touching down at 3:19 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, 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 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
August 3, 1998
Touchdown
3:19 PM CDT (20:19 UTC)
Path length
0.7 miles (1.1 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$50,000
County
Upshur County
Touchdown point
32.730, -95.120
Lift-off point
32.770, -95.120
Record number
587

What the Weather Service recorded

Tornado began in Harmony on the southern end of an open field cattle ranch, moved northward across the ranch snapping about 3 dozen dead pine trees, moved across a large insulated storage shed, destroying the shed and its contents. It then destroyed a power pole which knocked out power to about 25 thousand customers, moved across Hwy 154 lifting a westbound Ford Escort about 50 feet along the road. The Escort was speared by a 2X4 through the drivers rear passenger window and also a 2X4 was stuck through the car roof just behind the driver seat. The tornado then moved across the Harmony old High School peeling back asphalt shingling and ripping a chain link hurricane fence down. A second car was crushed by a snapped pine tree. It then moved into the woods and dissipated. Tornado was said to have a test tube shape by 3 eyewitnesses including an elementary school teacher who watched the entire event from her classroom. A rancher and ranch hand who watched the event from a barn about 50 yards from the tornado path. It appears the tornado was a landspout by definition.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 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.

Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 12:00Z

8.3 hours before the tornado, 132 km from the path. August 3, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 12:00Z on 1998-08-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 342 joules per kilogram, CIN -227, lifted condensation level 1608 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, Shreveport, LA at 12:00Z on 1998-08-03The 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 -20 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 5 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
342 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-227 J/kg
Surface CAPE
713 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1608 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-20 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
35 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 00:00Z

3.7 hours after it, 132 km from the path. August 4, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1998-08-04Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 944 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 2301 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1998-08-04The 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 8 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 13 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
944 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1777 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2301 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
4 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
8 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
42 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.7
0-3 km lapse rate
8.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Tyler/Pounds Field (TYR), 51 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
18:53 UTC10266310° 8 kt1015.6
19:53 UTC10565250° 8 kt1014.2
20:53 UTC1056540° 9 kt151013.2
21:19 UTC105.866.240° 12 kt1013.5
21:53 UTC967060° 12 kt201013.5

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

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 August 3, 1998

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 312:11 PM CDTF0Kingman, KS1.0110
August 31:55 PM MDTF0San Miguel, NM0.130
August 35:20 PM EDTF0Palm Beach, FL0.130
August 34:41 PM CDTF0, FL0.230
August 34:42 PM CDTF0, FL0.230
August 38:10 PM EDTF0Hendry, FL0.530
August 38:08 PM CDTF0Kossuth, IA0.230

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.