F1 tornado, Southold, New York, September 15, 2000

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   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

F1

Date

September 15, 2000

Touchdown

6:20 AM EDT (10:20 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Suffolk County

Touchdown point

41.070, -72.420

Lift-off point

41.070, -72.420

Record number

501

As a line of thunderstorms and heavy showers moved southeast, one cell spawned a short-lived tornado in the town of Southold on the North Fork of Long Island.The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey and confirmed the occurrence of a weak tornado in the Nassau Point area of Little Hog Neck. This tornado was classified as an F1 with wind speeds estimated from 80 to 100 mph.The weak tornado first touched down in the back yard of three homes on the west side of Nassau Point Road around 6:20 am EDT. Then it moved through the front yard of one of the homes, where it did its' greatest damage. Most of the damage was to trees. Many trees had numerous branches twisted off and several trees were snapped off and deposited a good distance from where they grew. Slight structural damage was done to the roof of the house.The tornado crossed over to the east side of Nassau Point Road and apparently lifted as it moved across Hog Neck Bay. It touched down again in Bayview (on the other side of Hog Neck Bay) around 6:40 am EDT. Two eyewitnesses on Rambler Road experienced very strong winds, which uprooted trees and damaged several pieces of heavy lawn furniture. In this vicinity, the tornado was classified as an F0, with an approximate path length of 0.1 miles and average path width of 10 yards.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:30 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in New YorkEvery tornado in New York since 1950Warnings in force in New York nowThe forecast where you are

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.