Tornadoes · United States · Florida · 2000

F0 tornado, Jax Craig Muni Arpt to Jacksonville, Florida, September 6, 2000

From Jax Craig Muni Arpt to Jacksonville, this F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Duval County on September 6, 2000, touching down at 11:40 AM EDT. 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
September 6, 2000
Touchdown
11:40 AM EDT (15:40 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
0 yards (0 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Duval County
Touchdown point
30.250, -81.550
Lift-off point
30.250, -81.550
Record number
516

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak FO was observed touching down in an open area of an industral park just east of UNF.

Weak FO. The tornado tossed a car on Blanding Blvd, caused some minor roof damage and blew down numerous trees and power lines. More than 7,000 customers were without power for most of the day.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

7 minutes of warning. NWS JAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:33 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 16:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
15:22 UTC16:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningJAX
15:33 UTC16:00 UTCTornado WarningJAX
17:25 UTC18:15 UTCTornado WarningJAX
18:15 UTC19:00 UTCTornado WarningJAX
21:55 UTC22:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningJAX

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 12:10 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.

Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 12:00Z

3.7 hours before the tornado, 31 km from the path. September 6, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jacksonville, FL at 12:00Z on 2000-09-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 529 joules per kilogram, CIN -9, lifted condensation level 678 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Jacksonville, FL at 12:00Z on 2000-09-06The 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 145 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 37 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
529 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-9 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1316 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
678 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
145 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
282 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.3
Supercell composite
3.9
0-3 km lapse rate
5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 00:00Z

8.3 hours after it, 31 km from the path. September 7, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Jacksonville, FL at 00:00Z on 2000-09-07Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 262 joules per kilogram, CIN -60, lifted condensation level 682 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Jacksonville, FL at 00:00Z on 2000-09-07The 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 -38 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 11 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
262 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-60 J/kg
Surface CAPE
552 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
682 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-38 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
38 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 30 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:40 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 6, 2000

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 611:45 AM EDTF0Duval, FL0.10$60,000

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.