1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak

1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak

File:1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak radar 2048z.png WSR-88D imagery of storms across Central Texas at 3:40 pm (CDT) on May 27, 1997
Type	Tornado outbreak
Duration	May 27, 1997
Tornadoes confirmed	20 confirmed
Max rating1	F5 tornado
Duration of tornado outbreak2	6 hours, 2 minutes
Highest winds	121 mph (194 km/h) (at Kelly Air Force Base)
Largest hail	4.50 in (114 mm) (in Bell and Falls counties)
Damage	>$126.6 million (1997 USD)
Casualties	28 fatalities, several injuries
Areas affected	Central Texas
1Most severe tornado damage; see Fujita scale 2Time from first tornado to last tornado

The 1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak was an unusual tornado outbreak in Central Texas which occurred on May 27, 1997. The F5 tornado that struck the town of Jarrell, Texas killed 27 people out of 410 residents. The tornado was 3/4 of a mile (1.2 km) wide and tracked across the ground for 7.6 miles (12.2 km). Double Creek Estates, a subdivision of Jarrell, was literally wiped off the face of the earth with all 38 homes and several mobile homes destroyed.

Meteorological synopsis

In the early morning hours of May 27, a large mesoscale convective complex developed over Eastern Oklahoma and Western Arkansas. A "gravity wave" or outflow boundary was generated by this system and stalled out over Central Texas. This was oriented from the northeast to the southwest, causing the movement of the supercells later on to be to the southwest, along with most of the tornadoes, which is extremely unusual. Also unusual on this day was the low wind shear and extreme instability.

Confirmed tornadoes

Confirmed tornadoes by Fujita rating

F0	F1	F2	F3	F4	F5	Total
6	6	3	3	1	1	20

List of confirmed tornadoes – Tuesday, May 27, 1997

F#	Location	County	Start Coord.	Time (UTC)	Path length	Max width	Damage	Summary	Refs
F2	W of Lorena	McLennan		1821 – 1833	2 mi (3.2 km)	75 yd (69 m)	$75,000	Several large trees were uprooted and a mobile home was destroyed.
F0	Eddy area	McLennan		1844 – 1847	0.2 mi (0.32 km)	40 yd (37 m)	N/A	Tornado reported by sheriff deputy caused no damage.
F3	E of Moody	McLennan, Bell		1846 – 1859	3.7 mi (6.0 km)	150 yd (140 m)	$150,000	A home and a barn were destroyed after the tornado initially touched down in open terrain. Two vehicles were also displaced by several hundred feet, and numerous trees were uprooted.
F0	WNW of Belton	Bell		1916 – 1927	0.2 mi (0.32 km)	50 yd (46 m)	N/A	Weak tornado remained stationary for much of its existence before dissipating.
F3	N of Belton	Bell		1927 – 1945	1.4 mi (2.3 km)	275 yd (251 m)	$900,000	A marina was destroyed on the northern shores of Lake Belton, with over 100 boats capsizing. Ten homes along the same shore sustained severe damage, and a number of trees were destroyed.
F1	SW of Belton	Bell		1950 – 1958	0.2 mi (0.32 km)	40 yd (37 m)	N/A	Brief tornado with unknown damage.
F1	Blooming Grove area	Navarro		2005 – 2010	0.5 mi (0.80 km)	50 yd (46 m)	N/A	Brief tornado uprooted several large trees.
F1	NW of Prairie Dell	Bell		2007 – 2025	2.4 mi (3.9 km)	100 yd (91 m)	$20,000	Initially stationary tornado that began to quickly track towards the south-southwest, destroying trees and damage several structures.
F2	N of Jarrell	Williamson		2025 – 2033	2 mi (3.2 km)	200 yd (180 m)	N/A	First of two tornadoes that preceded the Jarrell F5 tornado.
F2	NW of Jarrell	Williamson		2035 – 2039	0.5 mi (0.80 km)	150 yd (140 m)	N/A	Second of two tornadoes that preceded the Jarrell F5 tornado; classified as a multi-vortex tornado.
F1	S of Dawson	Navarro		2036 – 2040	0.5 mi (0.80 km)	50 yd (46 m)	N/A	Brief tornado uprooted large trees.
F5	W of Jarrell	Williamson		2040 – 2053	5.1 mi (8.2 km)	650 yd (590 m)	$40.1 million	27 deaths – See section on this tornado
F0	SW of Hubbard	Hill		2050 – 2053	0.2 mi (0.32 km)	40 yd (37 m)	N/A	Brief tornado caused no damage
F3	N of Cedar Park	Williamson, Travis		2105 – 2115	9.2 mi (14.8 km)	200 yd (180 m)	$70.1 million	See section on this tornado
F1	NW of Four Points	Travis		2115 – 2115	0.2 mi (0.32 km)	20 yd (18 m)	$5,000	Brief tornado with minimal damage.
F4	W of Lakeway	Travis		2150 – 2150	5.6 mi (9.0 km)	440 yd (400 m)	$15 million	1 death – See section on this tornado
F1	N of Kyle	Hays		2238 – 2245	3.5 mi (5.6 km)	60 yd (55 m)	$5,000	Trees and power lines were knocked over.
F0	S of Utopia	Uvalde		0000 – 0003	0.2 mi (0.32 km)	20 yd (18 m)	N/A	Tornado remained over open country.
F0	NW of Sisterdale	Kendall		0030 – 0032	0.7 mi (1.1 km)	30 yd (27 m)	N/A	Tornado remained over open country.
F0	NE of Moore	Frio		0120 – 0123	1 mi (1.6 km)	40 yd (37 m)	N/A	Tornado remained over open country.

F-5 Jarrell tornado

File:Jarrell tornado damage.jpg

House foundation swept clean by the tornado at the Double Creek Estates.

Initially a weak pencil-like tornado near the Bell-Williamson County line, the funnel rapidly intensified into a 3/4-mile-wide multi-vortex storm at around 3:45 pm CDT. Its first damage occurred three minutes later at 3:48 pm CDT in the northwestern portion of Jarrell as it struck the Double Creek Estates as a slow-moving wedge tornado, completely sweeping away the entire subdivision. It moved to the south-west, which is very unusual for tornadoes in North America. It later entered a wooded area before dissipating after damaging numerous trees. The tornado produced some of the most extreme ground scouring ever documented, as the earth at and around the Double Creek estates was scoured out to a depth of 18 in (46 cm), reducing lush fields of grass to wide expanses of mud. When the tornado crossed county roads outside of Jarrell, it tore 500-foot (152 m) lengths of asphalt from the roads. About 40 structures were completely destroyed by the tornado and dozens of vehicles were rendered unrecognizable after being thrown great distances, some more than half a mile. Some of the vehicles were pulverized into many pieces and strewn across fields, and others were simply never found. The vehicles that remained relatively intact were sandblasted and completely caked with mud and grass. A small-steel frame recycling facility was completely obliterated, with nothing left of the structure but the foundation and a few mangled steel beams. Telephone poles in the area were snapped off at the base and splintered, and trees in the area were completely shredded and debarked. Many researchers, after reviewing aerial damage photographs of Double Creek Estates, considered the Jarrell storm to be the most violent tornado, in terms of damage intensity, that they had ever seen. Many of the homes in the tornado's path were well-constructed and bolted to their foundations, but the tornado left only the slab foundations, and there was virtually no debris left throughout most of the area. The debris from the destroyed homes was finely granulated into small fragments, and scattered for long distances across the countryside. Several entire families were killed in the tornado, including all five members of the Igo family and all four members of the Moehring family. The tornado's slow forward movement combined with its extreme intensity were likely the main factors as to why the damage it produced was so remarkably intense. The tornado also picked up large amounts of loose soil as it deeply scoured the ground, producing a sandblasting effect on the houses and their occupants. Only one person was seriously injured and less than a dozen people suffered minor injuries after the tornado, a testament to the small probability of survival in the Double Creek neighborhood.

There were 27 human fatalities in the Double Creek subdivision. In addition, about 300 cattle were killed by the storm. It was reported that some of the tornado victims sustained such extreme physical trauma, that recovery teams had difficulty distinguishing human remains from animal remains scattered throughout the area. About 10 minutes prior to the main event, eyewitnesses spotted additional tornadoes north and west of Jarrell.

F-3 Cedar Park tornado

Around the same time as the Jarrell Tornado, another strong tornado formed about 30 miles south in Cedar Park. The tornado formed about 3 miles north of the city causing widespread F-0 and F-1 damage. The tornado continued south until it reached the central business district where it did extensive damage to an Albertson's Supermarket destroying most of the store and severely injuring one person. The managers Larry Fore, Jerry Trigg and Jay Turney put majority of the customers in the walk-in freezers, saving their lives. The tornado then continued south-southwest towards the Buttercup Creek subdivision where the tornado caused damage to 136 homes, all suffering between F-1 to F-3 damage. The tornado caused one indirect fatality, a man that died of a heart attack as he waited out the storm in his truck. The tornado then continued to move more southwest and finally dissipated about 1.1 miles away from the northern shore of Lake Travis. The tornado traveled 9.2 miles and had a maximum width of 250 yards

F-4 Lake Travis tornado

About 45 minutes after the Cedar Park and Jarrell tornadoes, another strong tornado formed on the southern shore of Lake Travis. The tornado rapidly intensified to an F-3 tornado, causing damage to a marina on shore. Then it increased to F-4 intensity, severely damaging a reinforced building containing a telephone switch center and completely destroying a stone house, only leaving the foundation slab behind. The tornado then headed south for a brief period before turning southwest then turning west-southwest, heading towards the Hazy Hills subdivision in the Pedernales Valley in western Travis County. The tornado damaged the subdivision, causing mostly F-3 damage to 45 homes with some of those completely destroyed, showing F-4 damage. This tornado killed one person as he tried to outrun the storm. The tornado then exited the subdivision and dissipated after travelling 5.6 miles with a maximum width of 440 yards.

Overpass Traffic Jam

Numerous vehicles sought shelter underneath various overpasses as the Jarrell tornado formed and strengthened, turning Interstate 35 into a virtual parking lot. Texas Highway Patrol worsened the traffic jam by stopping both northbound and southbound traffic in anticipation of the tornado moving southeastward and crossing the highway. Had the tornado abruptly changed direction, the death toll could have been much higher as nearly five miles of traffic and hundreds of people were trapped on the highway with no route of escape. However, the tornado moved parallel to Interstate 35 for nearly its entire lifespan in a south-southwestward direction, a very rare occurrence.

See also

• List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks
• Ultimate Tornado (documentary)

External links

• National Weather Service Assessment (PDF)
• Summary of Weather Event of May 27, 1997 (NWS)
• Aerial Damage Survey of the Central Texas Tornadoes of May 27, 1997 (PDF) (National Weather Service), includes discussion and map of the tornado's track
• Texas Tornadoes (National Climatic Data Center)
• Satellite imagery (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
• Storm chaser Lon Curtis's chase log of the event
• Highway Overpasses as Tornado Shelters: Fallout from the 3 May 1999 Oklahoma/Kansas Violent Tornado Outbreak
• "Jarrell" Reprise: A Fresh Look at the Unusual Central Texas Tornado Outbreak of May 27, 1997 by Lon Curtis and Alan R. Moller
• May 27, 1997 — The Jarrell, Texas Tornado (Shawn Schuman)
• Stormtrack Magazine Nov/Dec 1997: Jarrell, Texas Tornado Expanded Edition (PDF)