Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2000

F1 tornado, Belpre to Zook, Kansas, March 23, 2000

From Belpre to Zook, this F1 tornado ran 3.3 miles across Edwards and Pawnee counties on March 23, 2000, touching down at 4:50 PM CST 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 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    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
F1
Date
March 23, 2000
Touchdown
4:50 PM CST (22:50 UTC)
Path length
3.3 miles (5.3 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Counties
Edwards and Pawnee counties
Touchdown point
37.970, -99.150
Lift-off point
38.020, -99.130
Record number
692

What the Weather Service recorded

Ten power poles were destroyed and two pivot spinklers were damaged. The tornado continued into Pawnee county at 454 PM.

The tornado entered the county at 454 PM from Edwards county. Nothing in the path to damage in Pawnee county.

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

The warnings

7 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:43 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:20 UTC22:45 UTCTornado WarningDDC
22:43 UTC23:15 UTCTornado WarningDDC

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 20:04 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.

Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z

10.8 hours before the tornado, 71 km from the path. March 23, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 2000-03-23Temperature 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 -36510, lifted condensation level 633 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, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 2000-03-23The 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 79 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 50 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
-36510 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
633 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
50 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
79 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-62 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z

1.2 hours after it, 71 km from the path. March 24, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 2000-03-24Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1 joules per kilogram, CIN -11, lifted condensation level 808 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, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 2000-03-24The 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 17 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 48 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
1 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-11 J/kg
Surface CAPE
53 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
808 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
48 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
17 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-45 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Great_bend (GBD), 46 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:55 UTC53.651.8110° 15 kt1007.1
21:15 UTC53.651.8100° 15 kt201006.8
21:35 UTC53.651.8110° 13 kt191006.4
21:55 UTC53.651.8130° 17 kt221006.1
22:15 UTC55.451.8130° 19 kt221005.8
22:35 UTC55.453.6140° 22 kt291005.4
22:55 UTC55.453.6130° 19 kt1005.4
23:15 UTC55.453.6130° 17 kt221005.4
23:35 UTC55.453.6140° 17 kt1005.8
23:55 UTC55.453.6130° 18 kt1005.8
00:15 UTC55.453.6160° 10 kt1006.4TS
00:35 UTC53.648.2240° 21 kt1006.8TS

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

The radar

The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 77 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:52 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 KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of March 23, 2000

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 234:02 PM CSTF1Kiowa, KS13.0100
March 235:26 PM CSTF0Stafford, KS6.0150
March 235:52 PM CSTF0Stafford, KS1.350
March 235:58 PM CSTF0Stafford, KS1.130
March 236:15 PM CSTF0Barton, KS0.550

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.