F0 tornado, Alice, Texas, August 22, 1999

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.

Rating

F0

Date

August 22, 1999

Touchdown

7:20 PM CDT (00:20 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Jim Wells County

Touchdown point

27.750, -98.080

Lift-off point

27.750, -98.080

Record number

1180

After becoming a tropical depression in the Bay of Campeche on August 18, Hurricane Bret rapidly intensified to a dangerous Category 4 storm on August 21. However, Bret weakened as it encountered cooler shelf waters along the Texas coastline just before making landfall in Kenedy County, approximately 50 miles south of Corpus Christi, Texas, around 7pm CDT on August 22. Kenedy County is a very sparsely populated county in South Texas. As Bret moved inland across South Texas, it produced locally heavy rainfall. Bret continued to weaken and was downgraded to a tropical depression on the evening of August 23 as it moved across the Rio Grande Valley, just north of Laredo, Texas.Due to the extremely compact nature of Hurricane Bret, the higher wind speeds and associated higher rainfall amounts and related hurricane effects occurred farther to the south, relatively close and in phase with the eyewall landfall. The Corpus Christi City Manager estimated less than 100,000 dollars in damage as a result of Bret in Nueces County. The Duval County Judge estimated 2 million dollars in damage to farm structures and crops and about 200 homes were damaged. The highest rainfall activity occurred across the southern portions of Duval and Jim Wells counties, Kleberg, Nueces and extreme southern Aransas counties.A large portion of the South Texas Coastal Bend was in the favored right-forward quadrant of Hurricane Bret which increased the potential for tornado development. Reports of tornadoes were received from Aransas, Kleberg and Jim Wells counties. Based on damage reports, the tornadoes were of the minimal F0 strength, producing minor damage to trees, sheds, power lines and vehicles.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS CRP issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:19 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 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 19:34 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.

Alice International Airport (ALI), 5 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Corpus Christi radar (KCRP), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:19 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

3 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.