F0 tornado, Holdrege, Nebraska, June 19, 2000

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

June 19, 2000

Touchdown

7:17 PM CDT (00:17 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Phelps County

Touchdown point

40.650, -99.370

Lift-off point

40.650, -99.370

Record number

1011

After weeks of little or no rain, thunderstorms unleashed a torrent of rain, hail and high winds across much of south-central Nebraska. The thunderstorms developed west and north of Kearney and moved east and southeast throughout the evening.Early in the evening, severe thunderstorms pummeled the Johnson Lake area of northern Gosper county. Winds of 75 mph tore apart trees and downed power lines. Hail teamed with the wind to break several windows of homes around the lake. The storms pushed east into western Phelps county producing a brief tornado that was sighted in the northwest part of the county. No damage was reported. Over 5 inches of rain fell in western Phelps county along with walnut sized hail. There was considerable damage to both corn and bean crops.At nearly the same time, thunderstorms raged across Valley county. Near total devastation of the corn and bean crops was reported west of Ord. Baseball sized hail fell in the Ord area itself. Agricultural losses in the Ord area alone totaled over 5 million dollars. Roof and siding damage was reported in Ord along with damage to several vehicles due to the large hail. A tornado was spotted northeast of Arcadia. No damage was known to have occurred from this brief tornado.As the evening wore on, a large supercell thunderstorm moved east along U.S. Highways 6 and 34 from east of Holdrege to the Hastings area. Blinding rain, hail and some funnel clouds were spawned from this storm. In Kearney and Adams counties, 3 to 5 inches of rain fell in about one hour near Heartwell and Kenesaw. Several county roads were washed out or were impassable due to flooding. Water was flowing over U.S. Highways 6 and 34 for a time. Again, the corn and soybean crops sustained considerable damage. A grain bin was damaged in the Holstein area and several tree limbs fell in the strong wind. In northern Franklin county, hail and wind damaged 60,000 acres of crops. Producers in the county were expected to lose at least 4 million dollars from this storm.

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:03 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 21:43 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 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.

Holdrege/Brewstr (HDE), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

6 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.