Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2000

F0 tornado, Brownsburg, Indiana, May 9, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Hendricks County on May 9, 2000, touching down at 5:07 PM EST and reaching 100 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
May 9, 2000
Touchdown
5:07 PM EST (22:07 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Hendricks County
Touchdown point
39.900, -86.470
Lift-off point
39.900, -86.400
Record number
154

What the Weather Service recorded

A squall-line moved across central Indiana producing widespread tree damage, localized structural damage and one death and three injuries. A weak F0 tornado also briefly touched down in a farm field near Brownsburg doing no propery damage. A 42 year old woman was killed as a tree fell on her moving vehicle near Hillsboro in Fountain county, while three people were injured near Waynetown in Montgomery county when a tree fell on their car. Meanwhile, thunderstorm gusts up to 80 mph damaged the roofs to a grocery store and hotel near Terre Haute and four homes at Clarks Hill in Tippecanoe county. Fallen trees also damaged two cars near Brazil in Clay county. Otherwise, there were numerous reports of trees down and golfball size hail across central Indiana .

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:58 UTC22:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningIND
22:18 UTC22:45 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:49 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

10.1 hours before the tornado, 186 km from the path. May 9, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2000-05-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 50 joules per kilogram, CIN -353, lifted condensation level 767 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, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2000-05-09The 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 -452 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 58 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
50 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-353 J/kg
Surface CAPE
119 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
767 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
58 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
54 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-452 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-893 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-1.3
0-3 km lapse rate
4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z

1.9 hours after it, 186 km from the path. May 10, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2000-05-10Temperature 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 -71223, lifted condensation level 567 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, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2000-05-10The 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 -18 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 42 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 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
-71223 J/kg
Surface CAPE
10 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
567 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
42 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-18 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
28 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Indianapolis (EYE), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:53 UTC7866200° 13 kt201002.7
21:53 UTC7967200° 12 kt191002
22:24 UTC66.260.8270° 15 kt341003.7
22:53 UTC6762270° 8 kt1002
23:53 UTC6662270° 10 kt201002.4

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

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 May 9, 2000

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 93:15 PM CDTF0Independence, AR2.020
May 93:35 PM CDTF0Lawrence, AR1.010$1,000
May 94:05 PM CDTF0Greene, AR1.010$1,000
May 94:40 PM CDTF0Craighead, AR4.010$10,000
May 98:10 PM EDTF0Wood, OH4.050$100,000
May 98:22 PM EDTF1Lucas, OH0.250$150,000
May 98:23 PM EDTF0Wood, OH0.120

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.