Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2001
F2 tornado, Ft Wayne, Indiana, May 26, 2001
This F2 tornado ran 3.0 miles across Allen County on May 26, 2001, touching down at 5:45 PM EST and reaching 300 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 3, and did $6.5 million 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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- F2
- Date
- May 26, 2001
- Touchdown
- 5:45 PM EST (22:45 UTC)
- Path length
- 3.0 miles (4.8 km)
- Path width
- 300 yards (274 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 3
- Property damage
- $6.5 million
- County
- Allen County
- Touchdown point
- 41.070, -85.130
- Lift-off point
- 41.070, -85.130
- Record number
- 706
What the Weather Service recorded
Synoptic and mesoscale conditions and event summary for Saturday May 26th, 2001A low topped supercell thunderstorm developed in Cass county Indiana, and moved northeast through the Fort Wayne metropolitan area and into northwest Ohio. This thunderstorm produced several tornadoes and numerous funnel clouds. The wind field was favorable for rotating storms on with strong veering in the KIWX Wind Profile. This was on the south side of a unseasonably cold closed upper low in the mid and upper levels. Surface temperatures in the lower 50s, and scattered showers were against strong thunderstorm development. However sunshine over central Indiana allowed enough heating for a thunderstorm to develop and quickly began rotating.
Tornado touched down as as F1 at the Northcrest shopping mall on the northwest sideof Fort Wayne. Damaged to mall and surrounding businesses. Cars flipped over in parking lot withone person injured. Tornado then briefly lifted and touched down one half mile to the northeastas an F2. Extensive damage to the Papermill subdivision with F2 damage to two homes, anoffice complex, a retirement home, and a steeple torn off a church. One injury at the retirement home and one in the subdivision. Tornado proceeded northeast with F0-F1 damage to the Concordia Seminary and adjacent structures before the tornado lifted on the northeast side of the Seminary grounds.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
25 minutes of warning. NWS IWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:20 UTC, 25 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:20 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | IWX |
| 22:54 UTC | 23:10 UTC | Tornado Warning | IWX |
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 20:00 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), 12:00Z
10.8 hours before the tornado, 214 km from the path. May 26, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -70020 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1078 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 49 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 234 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 226 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.3 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z
1.2 hours after it, 214 km from the path. May 27, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 9 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -83 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 174 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1309 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 155 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 242 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.9 K/km
The surface observations
Fort Wayne (FWA), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:54 UTC | 61 | 52 | 160° 10 kt | 1006.4 | ||
| 21:54 UTC | 62 | 54 | 130° 10 kt | 1005.1 | ||
| 22:16 UTC | 60.8 | 53.6 | 120° 14 kt | 1004.1 | -TSRA | |
| 22:33 UTC | 60.8 | 53.6 | 230° 23 kt | 28 | 1005.1 | -TSRA |
| 22:44 UTC | 57.2 | 51.8 | 240° 19 kt | 26 | 1005.4 | -RA |
| 22:54 UTC | 57 | 52 | 240° 14 kt | 1005.8 | -RA | |
| 22:59 UTC | 57.2 | 51.8 | 250° 12 kt | 1006.1 | -TSRA | |
| 23:33 UTC | 53.6 | 51.8 | 280° 6 kt | 1006.4 | -RA | |
| 23:54 UTC | 54 | 51 | 170° 4 kt | 1006.1 | -RA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 57 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:45 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 2001 tornado in IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 26, 2001
8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 26 | 3:24 AM EDT | F0 | Charles, MD | 1.2 | 40 | $10,000 | ||
| May 26 | 3:10 PM CDT | F0 | Iroquois, IL | 0.2 | 30 | |||
| May 26 | 5:00 PM EST | F0 | Wabash, IN | 0.1 | 20 | $3,000 | ||
| May 26 | 5:00 PM EST | F0 | Huntington, IN | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| May 26 | 5:35 PM EST | F0 | Allen, IN | 0.1 | 10 | $2,000 | ||
| May 26 | 5:41 PM CDT | F1 | Hockley, TX | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| May 26 | 6:20 PM EST | F0 | DeKalb, IN | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| May 26 | 7:45 PM EDT | F0 | Williams, OH | 0.1 | 10 | $4,000 |
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.