Tornadoes · United States · North Carolina · 2001

F0 tornado, Ridgeway, North Carolina, May 19, 2001

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Warren County on May 19, 2001, touching down at 7:45 PM EDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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
May 19, 2001
Touchdown
7:45 PM EDT (23:45 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Warren County
Touchdown point
36.430, -78.230
Lift-off point
36.430, -78.230
Record number
717

What the Weather Service recorded

The roof of a chicken house was damaged, and numerous trees were blown down in the same area.

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

The warnings

37 minutes of warning. NWS RAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:08 UTC, 37 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:08 UTC23:45 UTCTornado WarningRAH
23:43 UTC00:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningRAH

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 20:12 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.

Roanoke, VA (KRNK), 12:00Z

11.8 hours before the tornado, 142 km from the path. May 19, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Roanoke, VA at 12:00Z on 2001-05-19Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 33 joules per kilogram, CIN -114, lifted condensation level 978 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, Roanoke, VA at 12:00Z on 2001-05-19The 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 49 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 18 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
33 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-114 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
978 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
49 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
33 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Roanoke, VA (KRNK), 00:00Z

0.2 hours after it, 142 km from the path. May 20, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Roanoke, VA at 00:00Z on 2001-05-20Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 262 joules per kilogram, CIN -61, lifted condensation level 1075 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, Roanoke, VA at 00:00Z on 2001-05-20The 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 -18 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 19 knots.1939Sfc1 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
262 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-61 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1294 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1075 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-18 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
31 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 19, 2001

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 1910:45 AM CDTF0Roberts, TX0.225
May 1912:17 PM CDTF0Ford, KS0.330
May 192:23 PM CDTF0Jackson, OK0.525
May 197:25 PM EDTF0Vance, NC0.125

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.