Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2000

F0 tornado, Mc Cool Jct to York, Nebraska, June 11, 2000

From Mc Cool Jct to York, this F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across York County on June 11, 2000, touching down at 6:45 PM CDT. 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
June 11, 2000
Touchdown
6:45 PM CDT (23:45 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
0 yards (0 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
York County
Touchdown point
40.780, -97.620
Lift-off point
40.780, -97.630
Record number
1007

What the Weather Service recorded

A nearly stationary frontal boundary was the focus for severe thunderstorms across a small part of south-central Nebraska. Shortly before 7 pm, thunderstorms in York county produced two brief tornadoes. Both tornadoes set down in unpopulated areas and were seen from many miles away. Later, as the storms built north and northwest, a sheriff's deputy reported a brief tornado northeast of Benedict. Just before midnight, an isolated severe thunderstorm produced a tornado. This time, the tornado was 4 miles north of Shickley, and was seen by the public and trained spotters. No significant damage was reported with any of the short-lived touchdowns.

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

The warnings

2 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:43 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:43 UTC00:15 UTCTornado WarningGID
00:17 UTC01:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGID
00:23 UTC01:00 UTCTornado WarningGID
01:03 UTC01:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGID

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.

Omaha, NE (KOAX), 12:00Z

11.8 hours before the tornado, 121 km from the path. June 11, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 2000-06-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 66 joules per kilogram, CIN -250, lifted condensation level 1427 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, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 2000-06-11The 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 -38 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 23 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
66 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-250 J/kg
Surface CAPE
423 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1427 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
4 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-38 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-16 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z

0.2 hours after it, 121 km from the path. June 12, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 2000-06-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 901 joules per kilogram, CIN -37, lifted condensation level 1331 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, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 2000-06-12The 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 -62 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 23 knots.193958Sfc1 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
901 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-37 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1629 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1331 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-62 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-16 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.5
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Aurora (AUH), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:50 UTC84.268160° 8 kt1014.2
22:08 UTC84.266.2170° 5 kt1014.2
22:28 UTC8666.2160° 9 kt1014.2
22:48 UTC84.266.2130° 9 kt1014.2
23:10 UTC84.266.2130° 8 kt1014.2
23:30 UTC84.266.2140° 6 kt1013.9
23:50 UTC84.266.2160° 7 kt1013.5
00:10 UTC84.266.2130° 8 kt1013.9
00:30 UTC82.466.2130° 7 kt1013.9
00:50 UTC82.464.4130° 8 kt151014.2
01:10 UTC80.662.6120° 9 kt1014.9
01:30 UTC75.25990° 16 kt271015.2

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

The radar

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:43 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 NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 11, 2000

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 115:14 PM CDTF0Ward, ND4.040
June 115:51 PM CDTF0Bottineau, ND0.040
June 116:08 PM CDTF0McHenry, ND3.030
June 116:56 PM CDTF0Oliver, ND8.040
June 117:00 PM CDTF0York, NE0.510
June 117:20 PM CDTF0York, NE0.510
June 117:45 PM CDTF0Benson, ND0.520
June 118:05 PM CDTF0Benson, ND2.0200
June 1110:59 PM CDTF0Fillmore, NE1.020

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.