Tornadoes · United States · Louisiana · 2000

F0 tornado, Labadieville, Louisiana, April 3, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Assumption Parish on April 3, 2000, touching down at 9:40 AM CDT and reaching 20 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 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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
April 3, 2000
Touchdown
9:40 AM CDT (14:40 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Assumption Parish
Touchdown point
29.850, -90.950
Lift-off point
29.850, -90.950
Record number
192

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado touched down briefly in a marsh area near Louisiana Highway 1014 causing no damage.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
18:38 UTC19:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLIX

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:28 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.

Slidell Radar S, LA (KSIL), 12:00Z

2.7 hours before the tornado, 128 km from the path. April 3, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Slidell Radar S, LA at 12:00Z on 2000-04-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1735 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 544 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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, Slidell Radar S, LA at 12:00Z on 2000-04-03The 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 250 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 58 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
1735 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2277 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
544 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
58 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
250 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
318 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
3.0
Supercell composite
12.5
0-3 km lapse rate
5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of April 3, 2000

28 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 32:00 AM EDTF2Polk, GA6.0706$1.0 million
April 33:00 AM EDTF1Cherokee, GA7.0100$1.1 million
April 33:15 AM EDTF1Gwinnett, GA4.0150$1.5 million
April 34:55 AM EDTF1Pickens, SC3.050
April 34:04 AM CDTF1Chambers, TX2.0100$100,000
April 34:08 AM CDTF1Jefferson, TX2.0201$100,000
April 34:20 AM CDTF1Jefferson, TX1.520$3.0 million
April 35:10 AM CDTF1Calcasieu Parish, LA5.0205$100,000
April 35:45 AM CDTF1Jefferson Davis Parish, LA3.020$250,000
April 35:50 AM CDTF0Jefferson Davis Parish, LA2.010$40,000
April 36:00 AM CDTF0Acadia Parish, LA7.020$100,000
April 36:28 AM CDTF1Saint Landry Parish, LA1.0201$50,000
April 37:40 AM CDTF1West Feliciana Parish, LA0.750$1,000
April 37:45 AM CDTF1West Feliciana Parish, LA3.050$200,000
April 38:30 AM CDTF1Livingston Parish, LA0.530$50,000
April 38:40 AM CDTF1East Baton Rouge Parish, LA0.320$50,000
April 38:45 AM CDTF1Saint Helena Parish, LA6.070$50,000
April 39:00 AM CDTF0Pike, MS0.220$20,000
April 311:22 AM CDTF0Saint Tammany Parish, LA0.130
April 311:39 AM CDTF1Fayette, AL3.0501$90,000
April 312:20 PM CDTF2Tuscaloosa, AL11.1300$90,000
April 312:25 PM CDTF1Choctaw, AL11.0200$50,000
April 312:44 PM CDTF0Jefferson, AL3.040$20,000
April 31:09 PM CDTF1Jefferson, AL5.7350$4.0 million
April 31:53 PM CDTF0Chilton, AL1.040$50,000
April 32:23 PM CDTF0Coosa, AL1.030$10,000
April 38:35 PM EDTF1Pike, GA7.550$1.0 million
April 38:30 PM CDTF0Coffee, AL0.00

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.