Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2000

F0 tornado, Carlyle, Illinois, June 16, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Clinton County on June 16, 2000, touching down at 12:25 PM CDT 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 16, 2000
Touchdown
12:25 PM CDT (17:25 UTC)
Path length
1.5 miles (2.4 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Clinton County
Touchdown point
38.650, -89.370
Lift-off point
38.650, -89.330
Record number
304

What the Weather Service recorded

A small tornado initially touched down north of Carlyle in the vicinity of the Fun Center on Highway 127. Supports on some of the equipment were ripped off and driven into the ground by the tornado. The tornado damaged 2 homes northeast of the Fun Center ripping off roof shingles and damaging the roof of a garage. A pole barn was also destroyed.

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 16:11 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.

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z

5.4 hours before the tornado, 179 km from the path. June 16, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2000-06-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2 joules per kilogram, CIN -14, lifted condensation level 1008 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, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2000-06-16The 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 90 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
2 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-14 J/kg
Surface CAPE
139 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1008 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
90 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
33 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z

6.6 hours after it, 179 km from the path. June 17, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2000-06-17Temperature 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 -82309, lifted condensation level 1104 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2000-06-17The 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 2 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 55 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
-82309 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1104 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
55 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
0 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
2 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
32 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The St Louis radar (KLSX), 116 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:22 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 IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 16, 2000

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 1610:55 AM CDTF1St. Mary Parish, LA1.310
June 165:45 PM EDTF1Lycoming, PA16.0100
June 168:23 PM EDTF0Oconee, SC0.150$10,000
June 168:44 PM EDTF0Oconee, SC0.150

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.