Tornadoes · United States · Wyoming · 1979

F0 tornado, Sweetwater County, Wyoming, August 14, 1979

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Sweetwater County on August 14, 1979, touching down at 1:00 PM MDT and reaching 200 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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
August 14, 1979
Touchdown
1:00 PM MDT (19:00 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
200 yards (183 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Sweetwater County
Touchdown point
41.670, -107.870
Record number
644

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.

Lander/Hunt Fiel, WY (KLND), 12:00Z

7.0 hours before the tornado, 145 km from the path. August 14, 1979.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lander/Hunt Fiel, WY at 12:00Z on 1979-08-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2 joules per kilogram, CIN -152, lifted condensation level 653 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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, Lander/Hunt Fiel, WY at 12:00Z on 1979-08-14The 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 12 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 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
2 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-152 J/kg
Surface CAPE
22 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
653 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
2 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
12 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
51 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lander/Hunt Fiel, WY (KLND), 00:00Z

5.0 hours after it, 145 km from the path. August 15, 1979.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lander/Hunt Fiel, WY at 00:00Z on 1979-08-15Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -47, lifted condensation level 1406 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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, Lander/Hunt Fiel, WY at 00:00Z on 1979-08-15The 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 21 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 27 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-47 J/kg
Surface CAPE
40 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1406 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
21 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
68 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1979 tornado in WyomingEvery tornado in Wyoming since 1950Warnings in force in Wyoming nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 14, 1979

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 142:00 PM MDTF0Carbon, WY0.110
August 142:00 PM MDTF0Sweetwater, WY0.110
August 142:00 PM MDTF0Sweetwater, WY0.110
August 142:00 PM PDTF0Humboldt, NV0.110
August 145:24 PM MSTF0Apache, AZ1.050

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.