F2 Tornado — Salt Lake, Utah

1999-08-11 · near Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

Event narrative

Around lunch time, a tornado touched down in the southwest portions of Salt Lake City. The tornado intensified to an F2 on the Fujita scale, and moved northeast through the metropolitan area of Salt Lake City. It caused widespread damage at the Delta Center, then ripped across an outdoor retailers convention tent, where the lone fatality occurred along with many of the injuries. After blowing out many windows in the Wyndam Hotel, the tornado continued its northeast track, knocking down scaffolding and shearing off a crane at the LDS Assembly Hall construction site. Next it skirted the Capitol Building, ripping out several large trees there and in historic Memory Grove. It then moved into the residential area known as The Avenues, damaging hundreds of trees and ripping the roofs off of several homes, before finally lifting back into the clouds. All told, there was 1 fatality, 80 injured, 300 buildings and homes sustained damage, with 34 homes deemed uninhabitable. At least 500 trees were totally destroyed, with 300 more damaged. Many vehicles were damaged or totalled as well.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.7300, -111.8700)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5703912. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.