Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1998

F0 tornado, Corpus Christi, Texas, September 22, 1998

This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Nueces County on September 22, 1998, touching down at 11:48 AM CDT and reaching 30 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 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
September 22, 1998
Touchdown
11:48 AM CDT (16:48 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Nueces County
Touchdown point
27.780, -97.420
Lift-off point
27.780, -97.420
Record number
665

What the Weather Service recorded

NWS meteorologist and numerous spotter reports of a funnel cloud which descended to the ground as a tornado. The life cycle of the tornado ranged between 5 and 10 minutes.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
16:52 UTC17:25 UTCTornado WarningCRP

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 11:23 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.

Corpus Christi, TX (KCRP), 12:00Z

4.8 hours before the tornado, 10 km from the path. September 22, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Corpus Christi, TX at 12:00Z on 1998-09-22Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 3430 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 500 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, Corpus Christi, TX at 12:00Z on 1998-09-22The 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 -37 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 21 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
3430 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2944 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
500 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-37 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
21 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-0.2
Supercell composite
-1.3
0-3 km lapse rate
4.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Corpus Christi, TX (KCRP), 00:00Z

7.2 hours after it, 10 km from the path. September 23, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Corpus Christi, TX at 00:00Z on 1998-09-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2395 joules per kilogram, CIN -28, lifted condensation level 720 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, Corpus Christi, TX at 00:00Z on 1998-09-23The 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 34 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 19 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
2395 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-28 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2640 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
720 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
34 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
39 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.6 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

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.