F4 Hoisington tornado, Kansas, April 21, 2001

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

F4

Date

April 21, 2001

Touchdown

9:15 PM CDT (02:15 UTC)

Path length

5.0 miles (8.0 km)

Path width

660 yards (604 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

28

Property damage

$43 million

County

Barton County

Touchdown point

38.500, -98.780

Lift-off point

38.570, -98.770

Record number

605

Initial touchdown occurred 1 mile southwest of Hoisington. The tornado rapidly achieved F3 intensity as it entered the west side of town. Moving northeast around 20 mph, the tornado intensified to F4 within 2-3 minutes. While crossing northwest Hoisington, the tornado inflicted a path about 2 miles long and about 2 blocks wide of almost complete destruction. Damage summary: 182 homes destroyed, 52 homes with major damage, 180 homes with minor to moderate damage, 12 businesses destroyed, tore the roof off the hospital, and severed power to most (if not all) areas on the northwest and north sides of town. As the tornado exited through the north side of town it weakened rapidly, inflicting F1-F2 damage as it approached Deception Creek which runs in a southeast to northwest manner 3 miles northeast of town. Once the tornado crossed the creek, it suddenly turned toward the northwest where it damaged two farmsteads shortly before dissipating.One man, 69 years of age, was killed when a minivan fell on him. There were 28 injuries of which 3 were critical.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

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.

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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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.

NWS Wichita, KS wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Apr 21, 6:02 PM CDT, 3 hours 13 minutes earlier.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WICHITA KS
602 PM CDT SAT APR 21 2001

...MESOSCALE UPDATE...

MAIN FOCUS FOR TSTMS OVR NEXT FEW HRS WL BE ALG WFNT CURRENTLY
EXTENDING FM NR SLN TO JUST S OF RSL.  THE FNT CONTS TO MOVE TO THE
N.  MOST IMPORTANTLY THE HILLSBORO PROFILER/RASS SOUNDING SHOWS STG
CAP.  THIS IS CONSISTANT WITH BOTH LAPS SOUNDINGS.  RADAR TRENDS
ALSO SIMILAR WITH WEAK DVLPMT ALG FNT IN CNTRL KS BUT WITH
MOST/STONGEST TSTMS TO THE NE WHERE CAP IS WEAKER.  WHILE CANNOT RUN
OUT AN ISOLATED/BRIEF STG/SVR TSTM IN CNTRL KS THRU SUNSET...BELIEVE
BETTER CHC WL BE LATER TONIGHT AS LLVL JET KICKS IN AND SOME COOLING
ALF.  HOWEVER THE BIG QUESTION THEN IS WHERE WL THE FNT BE LOCATED?
IF 12Z MODELS ARE CORRECT MUCH OF ACTIVITY WL END UP N OF OUR FCST
AREA.  THE ONLY OTHER CHC WOULD BE IF TSTMS DVLP ALG RETREATING
DRYLN TO THE W AND THEN MOVE INTO THE AREA...BUT AGAIN THAT WOULD
LKLY BE MUCH LATER TNGT.

HOWERTON

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.

Great_bend (GBD), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 135 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:15 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

11 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.