Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2000
F1 tornado, Sargent to Taylor, Nebraska, October 31, 2000
From Sargent to Taylor, this F1 tornado ran 12.0 miles across Loup and Custer counties on October 31, 2000, touching down at 7:35 PM CST and reaching 250 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $750,000 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
- 7:35 PM CST (01:35 UTC)
- Path length
- 12.0 miles (19.3 km)
- Path width
- 250 yards (229 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $750,000
- Counties
- Loup and Custer counties
- Touchdown point
- 41.630, -99.400
- Lift-off point
- 41.800, -99.330
- Record number
- 10
What the Weather Service recorded
The tornado touched down 2 miles west of Sargent with damage to a farm building and center pivot irrigation system. The tornado moved north northeast with several power poles broken off and minor damage produced at a farm 2 miles northwest of Sargent. The tornado then moved across open country until destroying a communication tower and several power poles 5 miles north of Sargent. A farm building was then damaged 6 miles north of Sargent before the tornado moved into southeast Loup county.
The tornado was on the ground as it moved into Loup county 2 miles southeast of Taylor. The tornado moved north northeast reaching a ranch 1 mile southeast of Taylor where several buildings were damaged. Then 2 outbuildings were destroyed at a farmstead 3 miles north northeast of Taylor with several buildings damaged including the home. There was also extensive damage to machinery, fences and power poles. As the tornado remained on the ground a farm building was damaged and pickup truck overturned 4 miles north northeast of Taylor before the tornado lifted.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
31 minutes of warning. NWS LBF issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:04 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:25 UTC | 01:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
| 01:04 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
| 01:45 UTC | 02:30 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 01:14 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), 00:00Z
1.6 hours before the tornado, 122 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
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 12:00Z
10.4 hours after it, 122 km from the path. November 1, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -89198 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1278 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 89 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -90 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 53 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.3 K/km
The surface observations
Ord/Sharp Field (ODX), 36 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:36 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 120° 5 kt | 1007.8 | VCTS -RA BR | |
| 00:53 UTC | 64 | 62 | 140° 11 kt | 1007.1 | ||
| 01:06 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 140° 11 kt | 20 | 1006.8 | |
| 01:36 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 150° 17 kt | 21 | 1006.1 | |
| 01:53 UTC | 64 | 62 | 150° 16 kt | 23 | 1006.1 | |
| 02:20 UTC | 64.4 | 60.8 | 150° 18 kt | 26 | 1006.1 | |
| 02:53 UTC | 64 | 61 | 150° 16 kt | 1005.8 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
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 | 5:38 PM CST | F1 | Frontier, NE | 9.0 | 150 | $250,000 | ||
| 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 | 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.