Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1999

F0 tornado, Granger, Texas, June 15, 1999

This F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Montgomery County on June 15, 1999, touching down at 3:30 PM CDT 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
June 15, 1999
Touchdown
3:30 PM CDT (20:30 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Montgomery County
Touchdown point
30.330, -95.480
Lift-off point
30.330, -95.480
Record number
687

What the Weather Service recorded

Tornado along FM 1485 about 6 miles west of US 59. Trees down in the area.

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

The surface observations

Conroe/Montgomery County Airport (CXO), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Houston radar (KHGX), 103 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:31 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 June 15, 1999

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 1511:20 PM EDTF0Edgefield, SC0.530$1,000

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.