Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1999

F1 tornado, New Boston, Texas, January 22, 1999

This F1 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Bowie County on January 22, 1999, touching down at 5:10 PM CST. It killed nobody, and did $40,000 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 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    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
F1
Date
January 22, 1999
Touchdown
5:10 PM CST (23:10 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
0 yards (0 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$40,000
County
Bowie County
Touchdown point
33.450, -94.420
Lift-off point
33.450, -94.420
Record number
39

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado touched down near the 700 block of Anderson St. and traveled northeast across Texas Hwy 8 then onto I-30 and lifted. Damage: The Bostonian Motor Inn, EZ-Mart convenience store, construction site of a new Ford Dealership and one house. All damage was minor. A piece of sheet metal 22 x 27 feet was ripped from the roof of the Bostonian Inn and thrown into a car. A window was shattered, ceiling tile damaged, and store merchandise damaged at the E-Z Mart. Scaffolding at the Ford Dealership toppled onto a pickup truck breaking the front window and crushing the hood. A construction trailer was set upside down in its original spot. Numerous eye witness and photographed by the New Boston Citizen Tribune.

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
23:24 UTC00:25 UTCTornado WarningSHV

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.

Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 00:00Z

0.8 hours after it, 125 km from the path. January 23, 1999.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1999-01-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 261 joules per kilogram, CIN -12, lifted condensation level 827 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, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1999-01-23The 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 -148 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 102 knots.1939587897117136156Sfc1 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
261 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-12 J/kg
Surface CAPE
519 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
827 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
102 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-148 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
18 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.8
0-3 km lapse rate
7.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 124 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:09 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 January 22, 1999

42 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
January 2212:52 AM CSTF1Ballard, KY1.01006$200,000
January 221:00 AM CSTF1McCracken, KY1.31002$500,000
January 221:15 AM CSTF2Pope, IL1.5150$800,000
January 221:50 AM CSTF1Union Parish, LA to AR21.040$3,000
January 222:25 AM CSTF1Grant, AR3.0100
January 223:20 AM CSTF3Benton, TN15.022015$1.0 million
January 224:15 AM CSTF3Montgomery, TN4.38805$73 million
January 224:25 AM CSTF1Shelby, TN3.5100$300,000
January 224:43 AM CSTF2Humphreys, TN4.02201$500,000
January 225:02 AM CSTF0Red River Parish, LA10.70
January 225:10 AM CSTF0DeSoto, MS2.00$50,000
January 225:49 AM CSTF1Bienville Parish, LA20.50
January 225:52 AM CSTF1Jackson Parish, LA21.90
January 226:22 AM CSTF1Lincoln Parish, LA11.940
January 228:23 AM CSTF0Chicot, AR1.550
January 229:25 AM CSTF0Jefferson, MS1.050$3,000
January 229:45 AM CSTF0Claiborne, MS1.050$3,000
January 2210:15 AM CSTF0Hinds, MS1.050$3,000
January 2210:20 AM CSTF0Holmes, MS1.050$3,000
January 2210:30 AM CSTF0Newton, TX1.010$30,000
January 2210:40 AM CSTF0Vernon Parish, LA1.010$30,000
January 2210:58 AM CSTF0Hinds, MS1.050
January 2211:25 AM CSTF0Chester, TN0.110
January 2212:05 PM CSTF0Hardeman, TN0.110
January 2212:09 PM CSTF0Natchitoches Parish, LA3.00
January 2212:10 PM CSTF0Grant Parish, LA3.820
January 2212:35 PM CSTF1Alcorn, MS5.050$70,000
January 221:15 PM CSTF0Concordia Parish, LA1.050
January 222:32 PM CSTF0Carroll, MS1.050
January 222:40 PM CSTF0Warren, MS4.050$3,000
January 223:00 PM CSTF0Holmes, MS1.050
January 223:15 PM CSTF0Prentiss, MS0.220$10,000
January 223:39 PM CSTF0Franklin, AL0.330
January 223:43 PM CSTF0Colbert, AL1.030
January 224:43 PM CSTF0Morgan, AL0.330
January 224:52 PM CSTF0Fayette, AL0.230$10,000
January 225:10 PM CSTF0Lee, MS0.110
January 225:15 PM CSTF1Winston, AL1.50$90,000
January 225:15 PM CSTF0Pike, MS0.120$10,000
January 225:20 PM CSTF0Prentiss, MS0.110
January 225:45 PM CSTF0Lawrence, MS1.00$10,000
January 227:35 PM CSTF0Miller, AR3.60

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.