Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2000

F1 tornado, East Pt, Florida, September 22, 2000

This F1 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Franklin County on September 22, 2000, touching down at 8:15 AM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 of property damage.

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 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    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
F1
Date
September 22, 2000
Touchdown
8:15 AM EDT (12:15 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Franklin County
Touchdown point
29.800, -84.880
Lift-off point
29.820, -84.880
Record number
531

What the Weather Service recorded

An F1 tornado touched down along Highway 65 at the East Bay Tower on the southwest edge of Tates Hell Swamp. Numerous trees and power lines down. Reported by the Franklin County EMA.

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:39 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

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.

Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 12:00Z

0.3 hours before the tornado, 86 km from the path. September 22, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 2000-09-22Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 100 joules per kilogram, CIN -28, lifted condensation level 674 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 2000-09-22The 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 260 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 52 knots.193958Sfc1 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
100 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-28 J/kg
Surface CAPE
373 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
674 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
52 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
260 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
504 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.7
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 00:00Z

11.7 hours after it, 86 km from the path. September 23, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 2000-09-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1046 joules per kilogram, CIN -20, lifted condensation level 737 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 2000-09-23The 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 118 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 30 knots.193958Sfc1 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
1046 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-20 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2282 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
737 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
118 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
142 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.4
Supercell composite
3.8
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Tallahassee radar (KTLH), 84 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:14 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 FloridaEvery tornado in Florida since 1950Warnings in force in Florida nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of September 22, 2000

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 228:05 AM EDTF0Franklin, FL0.330$30,000
September 228:45 AM EDTF0Wakulla, FL0.330$10,000
September 229:55 AM EDTF1Wakulla, FL1.560$170,000
September 2211:15 AM EDTF0Coffee, GA0.510$40,000
September 222:00 PM EDTF0Jefferson, FL0.320$50,000
September 222:10 PM EDTF0Jefferson, FL1.040$40,000
September 222:55 PM EDTF0Madison, FL0.320$1,000
September 223:00 PM EDTF1Irwin, GA2.050$200,000
September 2210:50 PM EDTF0Jenkins, GA1.0100
September 2211:50 PM EDTF1Allendale, SC1.03501$10,000
September 2212:30 AM EDTF2Allendale, SC4.840015$290,000
September 221:25 AM EDTF1Bamberg, SC1.0100

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.