Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2000

F0 tornado, Middletown to Mt Summit, Indiana, June 20, 2000

From Middletown to Mt Summit, this F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Henry County on June 20, 2000, touching down at 7:00 PM EST and reaching 30 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 20, 2000
Touchdown
7:00 PM EST (00:00 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Henry County
Touchdown point
40.030, -85.500
Lift-off point
40.030, -85.500
Record number
944

What the Weather Service recorded

A supercell embedded in a squall line produced two brief touchdowns from just south of MIddletown to just north of Mount Summit in Henry county. The first touchdown lasted a minute or less and occurred across farmland doing no damage, while the second destroyed one barn and damaged several roofs to outbuildings and downed numerous trees while again only touching down for a minute or less. A trained spotter followed the parent storm and observed several funnels across the county but only these two brief touchdowns. Otherwise, a squall line produced scattered reports of trees and power lines down across other central Indiana counties during the afternoon and evening of June 20.

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

The warnings

1 minute of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:59 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:47 UTC00:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningIND
23:59 UTC00:30 UTCTornado WarningIND
00:30 UTC01:00 UTCTornado WarningIND

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 19:30 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.

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z

0.0 hours before the tornado, 160 km from the path. June 21, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2000-06-21Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 810 joules per kilogram, CIN -25, lifted condensation level 968 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, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2000-06-21The 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 131 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 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
810 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-25 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2230 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
968 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
131 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
198 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
5.9
0-3 km lapse rate
6.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z

12.0 hours after it, 160 km from the path. June 21, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 2000-06-21Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 905 joules per kilogram, CIN -48, lifted condensation level 616 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, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 2000-06-21The 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 308 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 30 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
905 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-48 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1189 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
616 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
58 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
308 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
394 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.3
Supercell composite
10.5
0-3 km lapse rate
5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 76 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:02 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 IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 20, 2000

11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 202:32 PM CDTF1Shelby, IL24.03001$70,000
June 202:40 PM CDTF0Montgomery, IL10.350
June 205:07 PM EDTF0Manatee, FL1.010$30,000
June 204:22 PM CDTF0Lafayette, MO1.050$10,000
June 204:40 PM CDTF0Carroll, MO1.040
June 206:55 PM CDTF0Logan, IL0.3100$20,000
June 207:05 PM CDTF0Ralls, MO1.070$10,000
June 207:15 PM ESTF0Henry, IN0.130$50,000
June 207:44 PM CDTF0Sangamon, IL0.2150$1,000
June 209:20 PM EDTF0Shelby, OH0.320$2,000
June 209:08 PM CDTF0Piatt, IL2.650$20,000

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.