Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2000

F0 tornado, Fullerton, Nebraska, June 25, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Nance County on June 25, 2000, touching down at 1:35 PM CDT and reaching 40 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $2,000 of property damage.

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 25, 2000
Touchdown
1:35 PM CDT (18:35 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
40 yards (37 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$2,000
County
Nance County
Touchdown point
41.270, -98.120
Lift-off point
41.270, -98.100
Record number
396

What the Weather Service recorded

Thunderstorms developed rapidly during the afternoon along a cold front slicing across south-central Nebraska. Most of the activity was east of Highway 281 with one tornado being reported. The tornado occurred about 10 miles southwest of Fullerton near the north banks of the Loup River. The tornado damaged trees and some irrigation pipe along its one mile path. As the thunderstorms moved southeast, high winds became the main storm threat. In the Edgar area, two grain bins were damaged and numerous tree limbs were broken. Power was interrupted for a short time to customers in Clay, Nuckolls and Fillmore counties. Tree limbs were damaged or broken in several communities

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

The warnings

9 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:26 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
18:17 UTC19:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGID
18:26 UTC19:00 UTCTornado 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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 17:18 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

6.6 hours before the tornado, 145 km from the path. June 25, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 2000-06-25Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 371 joules per kilogram, CIN -296, lifted condensation level 1430 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 2000-06-25The 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 42 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 17 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
371 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-296 J/kg
Surface CAPE
170 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1430 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
42 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
47 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z

5.4 hours after it, 145 km from the path. June 26, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 2000-06-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 74 joules per kilogram, CIN -266, lifted condensation level 785 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 2000-06-26The 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 187 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 46 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
74 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-266 J/kg
Surface CAPE
34 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
785 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
46 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
187 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
147 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
4.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Grand Island (GRI), 38 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
16:56 UTC8874180° 11 kt1011.2
17:56 UTC9274200° 15 kt211010.5
18:56 UTC9274210° 21 kt261009.8
19:56 UTC9269240° 19 kt241009.5

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

The radar

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 109 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:35 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 25, 2000

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 252:40 PM MDTF0Greeley, KS0.250
June 254:53 PM CDTF0Carson, TX1.520
June 255:57 PM EDTF0Hillsborough, FL0.510$100,000
June 255:22 PM CDTF0Warren, IA0.220
June 255:23 PM CDTF0Carson, TX0.120
June 256:11 PM CDTF0Washington Parish, LA0.130

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.