Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2000
F1 tornado, Eustis, Nebraska, October 31, 2000
This F1 tornado ran 9.0 miles across Frontier County on October 31, 2000, touching down at 5:38 PM CST and reaching 150 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $250,000 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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- F1
- Date
- October 31, 2000
- Touchdown
- 5:38 PM CST (23:38 UTC)
- Path length
- 9.0 miles (14.5 km)
- Path width
- 150 yards (137 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $250,000
- County
- Frontier County
- Touchdown point
- 40.520, -100.030
- Lift-off point
- 40.650, -100.030
- Record number
- 13
What the Weather Service recorded
The tornado touched down 10 miles south southwest of Eustis damaging some trees. The tornado moved north northeast and was intermittently on the ground to 1 mile south of Eustis. Six miles south southwest of Eustis a farm received extensive damage with a barn destroyed and several outbuildings damaged along with damage to fences, machinery and corrals. This is the same farm that was struck two days earlier. Five miles south southwest of Eustis a farm was narrowly missed with damage to irrigation pipes and trees. The tornado then struck a farm 1 mile south of Eustis damaging several outbuildings.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
19 minutes of warning. NWS LBF issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:19 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:07 UTC | 23:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 23:19 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
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 19:53 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.
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 12:00Z
11.6 hours before the tornado, 77 km from the path. October 31, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -67870 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1406 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 53 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 19 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 81 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 166 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 2.8 K/km
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 00:00Z
0.4 hours after it, 77 km from the path. November 1, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 844 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -11 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 978 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 945 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 69 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 209 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 297 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.9
- Supercell composite
- 4.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.1 K/km
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 October 31, 2000
16 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 31 | 2:15 PM MST | F2 | Wallace, KS | 12.0 | 240 | |||
| October 31 | 3:16 PM CST | F0 | Thomas, KS | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| October 31 | 3:53 PM CST | F0 | Thomas, KS | 7.5 | 70 | |||
| October 31 | 2:54 PM MST | F1 | Sherman, KS | 0.5 | 100 | |||
| October 31 | 3:01 PM MST | F0 | Sherman, KS | 0.5 | 100 | |||
| October 31 | 4:38 PM CST | F1 | Decatur, KS | 4.0 | 120 | |||
| October 31 | 4:48 PM CST | F0 | Red Willow, NE | 3.0 | 100 | |||
| October 31 | 5:00 PM CST | F1 | Hayes, NE | 9.0 | 100 | $160,000 | ||
| October 31 | 5:10 PM CST | F0 | Red Willow, NE | 3.0 | 70 | |||
| October 31 | 4:49 PM MST | F0 | Sherman, KS | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| October 31 | 6:12 PM CST | F2 | Dawson, NE | 23.0 | 220 | $120,000 | ||
| October 31 | 6:15 PM CST | F0 | Rawlins, KS | 0.7 | 70 | |||
| October 31 | 7:00 PM CST | F0 | Nemaha, NE | 2.0 | 40 | $30,000 | ||
| October 31 | 7:00 PM CST | F2 | Custer, NE | 12.0 | 250 | $1.0 million | ||
| October 31 | 7:35 PM CST | F1 | Loup, NE | 12.0 | 250 | $750,000 | ||
| October 31 | 8:08 PM CST | F1 | Mills, IA | 2.5 | 70 | $40,000 |
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.