F0 tornado, Hayne, Kansas, May 29, 2001

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

May 29, 2001

Touchdown

7:51 PM CDT (00:51 UTC)

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Seward County

Touchdown point

37.120, -100.770

Lift-off point

37.120, -100.770

Record number

779

Power poles broken off.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:44 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:16 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 Dodge City, KS wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at May 29, 3:35 PM CDT, 4 hours 16 minutes earlier.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DODGE CITY KS
335 PM CDT TUE MAY 29 2001

FORECAST CHALLENGE WILL BE THE CHANCE FOR THUNDERSTORMS TONIGHT AND
LINGERING CHANCES FOR SHOWERS IN THE SOUTHEAST CWA ON WEDNESDAY PLUS
TEMPERATURES THROUGH THE NEXT FEW DAYS.

BASICALLY, THIS MORNINGS UPPER AIR ANALYSIS SHOWED A DECENT SHORT
WAVE TROUGH NEAR THE FOUR CORNERS REGION MOVING TO THE EAST
NORTHEAST.  STRONGER WAVE WAS LOCATED OVER THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST.

SOUTHWEST WAVE IS IN THE PROCESS OF MOVING OUT INTO THE CENTRAL
PLAINS THIS AFTERNOON.  THUNDERSTORMS WERE DEVELOPING OVER EASTERN
COLORADO IN WHAT APPEARS TO BE AN AREA OF COLD FRONTOGENESIS WITH THE
APEX ALONG THE KANSAS/COLORADO BORDER NEAR GOODLAND.  STORMS ALSO
DEVELOPING TO THE EAST/SOUTHEAST ALONG A POSSIBLE DEVELOPING WARM
FRONT.  THUNDERSTORMS DEVELOPING OVER THE REMAINDER OF SOUTHWEST
KANSAS APPEAR IN PART TO BE DRIVEN BY WARM AIR ADVECTION ALOFT.

RUC MODEL HAS THE FOUR CORNERS SHORT WAVE MOVING OUT INTO MY WESTERN
ZONES BY 00Z WHICH IS SIMILAR WITH OTHER MODEL SOLUTIONS.  18Z KDDC
SOUNDING SHOWS VERY UNSTABLE CONDITIONS WITH CAPES IN EXCESS OF
2500 J/KG AND SRH >600 M2/S2.  DEEP LOW LEVEL MOISTURE ALSO IN PLACE
PER THIS MORNINGS H85 ANALYSIS WITH +16 TDS AT KAMA AND KOUN.
PRECIPITABLE WATER AT KDDC THIS AFTERNOON IS NEAR 150% OF NORMAL SO
HEAVY RAINFALL WILL ALSO BE LIKELY.

WILL BE GOING WITH HIGH POPS OVER ALL BUT THE WESTERN SECTIONS OF
THE CWA TONIGHT.  THINK MOST OF THE THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE SHIFTING
TO ALONG AND EAST OF HIGHWAY 83 AROUND 00Z.  WILL STILL MENTION
CHANCE POPS IN THE WEST FOR EVENING STORMS. WHILE THE MAIN AREA OF
THUNDERSTORMS THIS AFTERNOON HAS NOT BEEN MOVING TOO FAST, AREAL
SPEED SHOULD INCREASE AS THE UPPER WAVE MOVES IN AND CARRIES IT
TO THE EAST.  WILL HOLD OFF ON A FFA BUT WILL MENTION LOCALLY
HEAVY RAIN.

UPPER WAVE CONTINUES ON EAST TONIGHT AND THE SURFACE FRONT IS
FORECAST TO MOVE TO THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF THE CWA BY WEDNESDAY
MORNING AND THEN ON EAST OUT OF THE AREA.  WILL MENTION A SLIGHT
CHANCE FOR EARLY MORNING SHOWERS IN THE EASTERN CWA BUT WILL GO
WITH SILENT POP OVER THE REMAINDER OF THE CWA AS AREA COMES UNDER
NVA AND DOWNWARD VERTICAL MOTION.

EXPECT TO SEE SOME CLOUDINESS AROUND TOMORROW AS LOW/MID LEVEL FLOW
REMAINS SLIGHTLY CYCLONIC.  DRIER AIR WILL BE MOVING IN SO QUESTION
REMAINS AS TO HOW LONG CLOUDS PERSIST.  WILL KEEP MOSTLY CLOUDY
WORDING GOING FOR TOMORROW AND THEN GO WITH PARTLY CLOUDY SKIES
TOMORROW NIGHT.  FOR TEMPERATURES, WILL GENERALLY GO A FEW DEGREES
TO FIVE DEGREES BELOW FWC GUIDANCE.

EXTENDED DISCUSSION...

TIME IS SHORT FOR A DEEP INTERROGATION OF THE EXTENDED TODAY. MOST
OF THE GOING EXTENDED APPEARS TO BE ON TRACK WITH QUIET LATE WEEK
PERIODS BETWEEN UPPER LEVEL SYSTEMS AND THE NEXT SHORTWAVE BRINGING
THE THREAT OF CONVECTION BACK FOR EARLY NEXT WEEK. HAVE COOLED
THINGS OFF A BIT ON MONDAY WITH COLD FRONTAL PASSAGE BEHIND THE WAVE
AND THEN BEGIN WARM TEMPS UP AGAIN AS THE NEXT SHORTWAVE RIDGE TAKES
CONTROL AS A MORE PROGRESSIVE PATTERN DEVELOPS.

PRELIMINARY GUIDANCE FOR COORDINATION ONLY. OFFICIAL FORECASTS ARE
CONTAINED WITHIN THE DODGE CITY ZONE FORECAST.

DDC 057/072 050/076 052 710
GCK 056/071 048/075 050 710
EHA 055/074 051/079 051 510
LBL 056/073 050/077 051 710
HYS 056/068 048/074 049 910
P28 063/075 054/080 055 720

.DDC...NONE.

GERARD/POAGE

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.

Liberal_muni (LBL), 19 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), 100 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:53 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

28 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.