Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1999

F2 tornado, Martinsville to San Augustine, Texas, March 2, 1999

From Martinsville to San Augustine, this F2 tornado ran 5.5 miles across Nacogdoches, Shelby and San Augustine counties on March 2, 1999, touching down at 5:30 PM CST and reaching 150 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $360,000 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 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.

The record

Rating
F2
Date
March 2, 1999
Touchdown
5:30 PM CST (23:30 UTC)
Path length
5.5 miles (8.8 km)
Path width
150 yards (137 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$360,000
Counties
Nacogdoches, Shelby and San Augustine counties
Touchdown point
31.680, -94.420
Lift-off point
31.620, -94.230
Record number
170

What the Weather Service recorded

The damage was 150 yards wide that began in a rural area, 1/4 mile north of the intersection of Hwy 95 and FM 1878. Damage consisted of a chimney blown down, a large cedar tree snapped in half then blown 20 yards from the stump. A Tyson chicken barn was completely demolished with about 300 chickens killed. Forestry damage consisted of numerous trees fallen. A tin roofing from the chicken barns was tangled in many trees up to 1.2 miles away.

This was a segment of a tornado which traversed Nacogdoches and San Augustine Counties. Damage was mainly forestry however a large did crushed a mobile home with moderate damage.

This was a continuation of the Nacogdoches tornado. Damage was mainly forestry consisting of numerous trees fallen and limbs snapped. Three homes had major roof damage and a carport was completely destroyed. Two large bails of rain saturated hay (Approximately 1500 lbs each dry weight) were moved about 25 yards.

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
23:11 UTC00:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningSHV
23:32 UTC00:05 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:03 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), 12:00Z

11.5 hours before the tornado, 107 km from the path. March 2, 1999.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 12:00Z on 1999-03-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 974 joules per kilogram, CIN -34, lifted condensation level 501 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 12:00Z on 1999-03-02The 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 56 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 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
974 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-34 J/kg
Surface CAPE
734 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
501 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
56 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
70 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.4
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Shreveport, LA (KSHV), 00:00Z

0.5 hours after it, 107 km from the path. March 3, 1999.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Shreveport, LA at 00:00Z on 1999-03-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1497 joules per kilogram, CIN -4, lifted condensation level 889 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 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 1999-03-03The 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 49 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 18 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
1497 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-4 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2272 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
889 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
49 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
34 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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 March 2, 1999

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 25:52 PM CSTF1Newton, TX5.050$50,000
March 26:20 PM CSTF0Jasper, TX3.030$70,000
March 26:45 PM CSTF1Jasper, TX5.020$10,000
March 26:55 PM CSTF3Newton, TX12.050016$750,000
March 27:18 PM CSTF1Beauregard Parish, LA6.0200$50,000
March 27:45 PM CSTF2Beauregard Parish, LA8.00$100,000
March 29:15 PM CSTF1Saint Landry Parish, LA0.520$100,000
March 29:25 PM CSTF1Iberia Parish, LA2.0502$2.0 million

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.