Tornadoes · United States · Colorado · 2000

F0 tornado, Center, Colorado, June 5, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Saguache County on June 5, 2000, touching down at 12:50 PM MDT and reaching 50 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
June 5, 2000
Touchdown
12:50 PM MDT (18:50 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Saguache County
Touchdown point
37.870, -105.950
Lift-off point
37.870, -105.950
Record number
468

What the Weather Service recorded

A brief, weak landspout tornado occurred over open country with no known damage.

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.

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 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.

Grand Junction, CO (KGJT), 12:00Z

6.8 hours before the tornado, 262 km from the path. June 5, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Grand Junction, CO at 12:00Z on 2000-06-05Temperature 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 -38672, lifted condensation level 4000 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Grand Junction, CO at 12:00Z on 2000-06-05The 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 184 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 knots.1939Sfc1 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
-38672 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
4000 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
184 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
229 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Grand Junction, CO (KGJT), 00:00Z

5.2 hours after it, 262 km from the path. June 6, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Grand Junction, CO at 00:00Z on 2000-06-06Temperature 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 -67470, lifted condensation level 4764 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Grand Junction, CO at 00:00Z on 2000-06-06The 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 13 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 19 knots.1939Sfc1 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
-67470 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1223 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
4764 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
13 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
45 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
10.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Alamosa Municipal(Awos) (ALS), 49 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
16:52 UTC6830 6 kt1029.8
17:52 UTC7329170° 7 kt1028.8
18:52 UTC7429 4 kt1027.4
19:52 UTC7829180° 10 kt151026.4TS

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Pueblo radar (KPUX), 168 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:52 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are

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.