May 11, 1999 Loyal Valley Texas F4 Tornado

[Brandon Skalniak]

Hi everyone,

So while perusing through the Wikipedia F5 & EF5 article, I saw some information about this tornado. Not much data is given, besides a few sources that state 1 fatality, some intense damage (like pavement scouring, utter wiping away of home debris, and throwing a truck 3/4 of a mile), and according to Wikipedia, some reporter said that the damage in some respects rivaled that of Jarrell. A few places said potential F5 damage. I can't find much more information other than that.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Brandon

 

[Lanny Dean]

Man this is a tough event but I did find some data
http://has.ncdc.noaa.gov/

Also, I believe there was an old thread regarding this event? But I can’t seem to locate it. I only of one chaser who was on this event, @Gene Moore. I *believe* he has some info/pics on his website if it’s still active.

 

[Steve Holmes]

Gendisasters.com is a fantastic site for researching past tornadoes (Tornadoes and Other Historical Disasters throughout United States and Canada | GenDisasters.com). There's not one listed as "Loyal Valley." Maybe it's under another name.

 

[Brandon Skalniak]

Gendisasters.com is a fantastic site for researching past tornadoes (Tornadoes and Other Historical Disasters throughout United States and Canada | GenDisasters.com). There's not one listed as "Loyal Valley." Maybe it's under another name.

I have seen it called Castell or something as well.

 

[GPhillips]

Here's the previous thread on the subject.

May 11th 1999 Castell, TX Tornado Archive?

A lady that was in this tornado was asking for pictures / information about the storm. I was next to the cell as well at Llano but chose instead to chase a cell north of Llano. Only chaser I know of on this storm was Gene Moore. I am trying to find information / archives of radar, satellite...

stormtrack.org

 

[GPhillips]

And here's a grlevel2 analyst screen capture from when the circulation was the strongest on radar.

 

[Brian McWatters]

From the National Centers For Environmental Information storm events database:

Mason County TX F4 tornado 1999-05-11

Gillespie County TX F3 tornado 1999-05-11

 

[Brian McWatters]

From Gene Moore's Chaseday site:

"One of the storms passed over the town of Castell where a killer F-4 tornado struck last year. I chased that storm, but was pinned down by flooding and large hail."

 

[William Monfredo]

The Castell, TX event was my one & only chase post to the paper copy of Stormtrack, listed as written by "Bill and Lisa..." at that time.

Looking back, I believe that you would have had to virtually be in the tornado to have seen it. The parent storm went HP with rainfall rates of at least two inches per hour out in the middle of the TX Hill Country. Instead of continuing to move east, the thunderstorm changed its direction of movement by 90 degrees as it built south & slowed to an absolute crawl. Most consider that deviant motion as uncommon. Very gloomy storm.

I spoke to the off-duty nurse who provided on-site help that day, and my impression was that a gentleman went out to save his pickup truck and got impaled with a board like you'd see in the movie Twister. The tornado lingered a long time over some spots like the 1997 Jarrell tornado.
Not a lot of damage indicators (didn't use that term much back then anyway,) but I can vouch for the fact that the tornado tore a well-built house from its foundation. If you look back over the paper copy, TM post-scripted that it was the worst damage that he'd ever seen, likely an F-5 tornado.