F2 tornado, Mentone, Texas, April 30, 1999

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

F2

Date

April 30, 1999

Touchdown

11:40 AM CDT (16:40 UTC)

Path length

6.0 miles (9.7 km)

Path width

170 yards (155 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Loving County

Touchdown point

31.770, -103.680

Lift-off point

31.830, -103.750

Record number

950

A classic severe weather setup was taking place on this day and would continue into the next day. A strong upper level low pressure system was centered near Las Vegas, NV and was moving slowly eastward toward the area. Surface winds were backed to the southeast with rich moisture.One item of interest was the early start time of the storms with the first tornado by 1130 am CDT...only about 10 am local sun time. With the mid-level flow blowing parallel to the orientation of multicell complexes were oriented, training of storms was common over several parts of the region. In the evening tornadoes and hail events subsided and flash flooding began to take control.

The Reeves County tornado crossed the Pecos River and headed north across open country. Soon after it crossed the river, the tornado hit some oil field supplies and caused some damage. The only oil pumpjack in the path was overturned. Engineers at a pumpjack manufacturer estimated winds in the range of 110-130 mph to knock over this large piece of equipment. Vegetation mainly consisted of brush less than 4 feet tall with disturbances ranging from snapped or flattened to bent more than 45 degrees. The small foliage on these plants was generally still present, but wind-torn.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS MAF issued a tornado warning for this county at 16:35 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:00 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:20 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 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.

Wink/Winkler Co. (INK), 49 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 145 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:38 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1999 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.