Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1999

F0 tornado, Newton, Texas, January 29, 1999

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Newton County on January 29, 1999, touching down at 3:20 PM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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 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
January 29, 1999
Touchdown
3:20 PM CST (21:20 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Newton County
Touchdown point
30.830, -93.780
Lift-off point
30.830, -93.780
Record number
72

What the Weather Service recorded

A small, weak tornado developed from the same storm that produced the Tyler and Jasper County tornado, but the only damage was a few trees down in wooded areas.

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

The warnings

3 minutes of warning. NWS LCH issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:17 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:50 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:17 UTC21:50 UTCTornado WarningLCH
22:06 UTC00:05 UTCFlash Flood WarningLCH

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:53 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.

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 12:00Z

9.3 hours before the tornado, 97 km from the path. January 29, 1999.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 1999-01-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 708 joules per kilogram, CIN -20, lifted condensation level 648 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, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 1999-01-29The 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 153 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 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
708 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-20 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1111 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
648 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
153 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
229 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.6
Supercell composite
3.9
0-3 km lapse rate
5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z

2.7 hours after it, 97 km from the path. January 30, 1999.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 1999-01-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1341 joules per kilogram, CIN -8, lifted condensation level 535 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, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 1999-01-30The 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 184 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 40 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
1341 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-8 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1576 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
535 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
40 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
184 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
192 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.2
Supercell composite
5.8
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Ft Polk radar (KPOE), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:22 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 29, 1999

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
January 292:20 PM CSTF2Jasper, TX17.0300$40,000
January 292:30 PM CSTF0Allen Parish, LA2.0100$10,000
January 292:55 PM CSTF0Rapides Parish, LA1.050$10,000

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.