Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1998

F0 tornado, Vidor to Mauriceville, Texas, October 18, 1998

From Vidor to Mauriceville, this F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Orange County on October 18, 1998, touching down at 10:23 AM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 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
October 18, 1998
Touchdown
10:23 AM CDT (15:23 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$100,000
County
Orange County
Touchdown point
30.170, -94.020
Lift-off point
30.170, -94.020
Record number
1313

What the Weather Service recorded

A small tornado briefly touched down north of Vidor, in the Pine Forest community. Numerous trees were blown down, and some landed on cars and homes.

A small tornado touched down just north of Mauriceville, damaging a church and blowing some trees down.

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

The warnings

0 minutes of warning. NWS LCH issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:23 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 16:25 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
15:23 UTC16:25 UTCTornado WarningLCH
16:30 UTC17:35 UTCTornado WarningLCH
21:42 UTC23:45 UTCFlash Flood WarningLCH

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 10:49 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.

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

3.4 hours before the tornado, 79 km from the path. October 18, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 1998-10-18Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 447 joules per kilogram, CIN -6, lifted condensation level 647 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 1998-10-18The 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 149 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 35 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
447 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-6 J/kg
Surface CAPE
564 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
647 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
149 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
172 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.2
Supercell composite
1.5
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

8.6 hours after it, 79 km from the path. October 19, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 1998-10-19Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 12 joules per kilogram, CIN -90, lifted condensation level 1123 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 00:00Z on 1998-10-19The 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 31 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
12 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-90 J/kg
Surface CAPE
530 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1123 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
31 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-30 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-20 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Lake Charles radar (KLCH), 77 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:25 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 1998 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of October 18, 1998

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
October 184:45 AM CDTF0Harris, TX1.030$30,000
October 185:00 AM CDTF0Harris, TX1.030$10,000
October 185:30 AM CDTF0Liberty, TX0.530$30,000
October 186:25 AM CDTF2Waller, TX1.05011$70,000
October 189:20 AM CDTF0Hardin, TX1.030$10,000
October 1811:02 AM CDTF0Jasper, TX1.030$30,000
October 1811:30 AM CDTF0Orange, TX1.030$50,000

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.