Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1999

F0 tornado, Combes, Texas, April 26, 1999

This F0 tornado ran 1.8 miles across Cameron County on April 26, 1999, touching down at 5:35 PM 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
April 26, 1999
Touchdown
5:35 PM CDT (22:35 UTC)
Path length
1.8 miles (2.9 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Cameron County
Touchdown point
26.320, -97.670
Lift-off point
26.280, -97.650
Record number
914

What the Weather Service recorded

Thunderstorms produced several areas of hail from Kenedy to Cameron County. A tornado touched down 2.6 miles west southwest of Santa Monica in Willacy County damaging out buildings. The tornado moved south southwest into Cameron County through sorghum and cotton fields before lifting 5.6 miles east northeast of Combes.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:52 UTC22:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningBRO
22:17 UTC22:50 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningBRO

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.

Brownsville Intl, TX (KBRO), 12:00Z

10.6 hours before the tornado, 52 km from the path. April 26, 1999.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brownsville Intl, TX at 12:00Z on 1999-04-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1942 joules per kilogram, CIN -236, lifted condensation level 775 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, Brownsville Intl, TX at 12:00Z on 1999-04-26The 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 188 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 35 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
1942 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-236 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1953 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
775 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
188 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
348 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
2.2
0-3 km lapse rate
4.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Brownsville Intl, TX (KBRO), 00:00Z

1.4 hours after it, 52 km from the path. April 27, 1999.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brownsville Intl, TX at 00:00Z on 1999-04-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 3056 joules per kilogram, CIN -35, lifted condensation level 858 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 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, Brownsville Intl, TX at 00:00Z on 1999-04-27The 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 -118 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 26 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
3056 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-35 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2569 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
858 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-118 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-164 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-1.5
Supercell composite
-7.1
0-3 km lapse rate
5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Harlingen International Airport (HRL), 8 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:53 UTC9172120° 6 kt1003.4
21:53 UTC927280° 5 kt1002.7
22:36 UTC84.271.6360° 20 kt261003.7
22:41 UTC78.873.460° 22 kt311003
22:53 UTC7471100° 15 kt361005.4+TSRA BR
23:06 UTC75.273.4130° 17 kt1004.1
23:18 UTC7775.2100° 12 kt1003.7
23:25 UTC78.873.4110° 12 kt1003.7
23:53 UTC73.471.6100° 15 kt361005.4

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

The radar

The Brownsville radar (KBRO), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:36 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 1999 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 26, 1999

13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 265:30 AM CDTF0Mills, TX0.10$10,000
April 269:35 AM CDTF0Anderson, TX1.001$30,000
April 269:40 AM CDTF0Anderson, TX0.10$10,000
April 269:42 AM CDTF1Fannin, TX0.20$40,000
April 2610:31 AM CDTF0Rains, TX0.10
April 2612:12 PM CDTF1Miller, AR12.0500$120,000
April 261:12 PM CDTF1Nacogdoches, TX5.4100$190,000
April 261:30 PM CDTF1Panola, TX3.0100$30,000
April 262:01 PM CDTF2Pope, AR6.51502
April 265:21 PM CDTF0Willacy, TX2.930$10,000
April 267:50 PM CDTF0Pratt, KS0.150
April 268:24 PM CDTF1Pratt, KS6.00$4,000
April 268:46 PM CDTF0Barber, KS4.250

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.