F0 tornado, Webster, Kansas, June 29, 2000

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.

Rating

F0

Date

June 29, 2000

Touchdown

8:02 PM CDT (01:02 UTC)

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Rooks County

Touchdown point

39.430, -99.430

Lift-off point

39.430, -99.430

Record number

398

A ferocious severe thunderstorm moved south from Nebraska and battered a section of north-central Kansas with high winds and hail. Phillips and Rooks counties took the brunt of this mid-evening storm as losses in these two counties alone totaled in the millions. The Long Island area of northern Phillips county sustained the most damage. Winds of 100 mph hammered the area around 7 pm and hail covered the ground like snow. Over 300 windows in this small town were broken and nearly every home in the town sustained some damage to windows, siding or the roof. One person was injured as she and her family tried to run for cover from the storm. The wind blew her across the kitchen of her home and into the dining room. She sustained head, neck and leg injuries and was transferred to a hospital in Kearney, Nebraska. The local grain company had seven grain bins and two unloading facilities demolished. About 1200 customers lost power during the storm. Wind gusts to 80 mph and hail the size of quarters were also reported in Agra and Logan.As the storm moved south into Rooks county, it spawned a brief tornado north of Webster Lake. The funnel set down about 1 mile north of the reservoir but did little if any damage. Just days earlier, outdoor warning devices were installed at the lake area and they were put into use to alert the public on this day. Eighty mile an hour winds were common in Rooks county and resulted in up-rooted trees, downed power lines, roof and building damage. One truck was overturned on Highway 24 but the driver was uninjured.Crop damage was limited to the remaining wheat crop and some corn. Fortunately, about 80 percent of the wheat crop had been harvested prior to the storm.

Brief touchdown with no damage.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:59 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:56 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 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.

Hill_city (HLC), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.