Tornadoes · United States · North Dakota · 2001

F0 tornado, Watford City, North Dakota, July 26, 2001

This F0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across McKenzie County on July 26, 2001, touching down at 6:35 PM CDT and reaching 40 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
July 26, 2001
Touchdown
6:35 PM CDT (23:35 UTC)
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
40 yards (37 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
McKenzie County
Touchdown point
47.800, -103.000
Lift-off point
47.800, -103.000
Record number
301

What the Weather Service recorded

Brief touchdown in open country.

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

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:04 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.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Bismarck, ND wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Jul 26, 3:00 PM CDT, 3 hours 35 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Jul 26, 3:00 PM CDT, 3 hours 35 minutes before
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BISMARCK ND
300 PM CDT THU JUL 26 2001

UPPER LEVEL SHORT WAVE WILL MOVE OVER THE AREA TONIGHT AND FRIDAY
AND THE ASSOCIATED SURFACE LOW WILL MOVE SLOWLY EAST WITH IT. WITH
DEWPOINTS IN THE 60S AND PLENTY OF PW LOOKS TSTMS WITH HEAVY RAIN
ARE LIKELY AS CONVECTION NOW IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN MONTANA MOVES
EAST WITH THE SHORT WAVE.  ISOLATED FLOODING FROM TSTORMS IS
POSSIBLE BUT WILL NOT ISSUE FLASH FLOOD WATCH AT THIS TIME. LOOKS
LIKE THERE WILL BE A BRIEF BREAK IN THE THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY
SATURDAY AS A SHORT WAVE RIDGE MOVES OVER THE STATE AND DEWPOINTS
FALL AS A HIGH PRESSURE SYSTEM MOVES THROUGH SOUTHERN CANADA...BUT
WITH A NEW UPPER LEVEL TROUGH BECOMING INTRENCHED OVER THE WESTERN US
THE REST OF THE WEEK WILL BE A REPEAT OF THE LAST WEEK...SCATTERED
THUNDERSTORMS...SOME SEVERE WITH TEMPS NEAR NORMAL.

.BIS...NONE.

TSW

In the hours before

Local storm report, Jul 26, 12:58 PM CDT, 5 hours 37 minutes before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BISMARCK ND
1258 PM CDT THU JUL 26 2001

TIME(CDT)  .....CITY LOCATION.....STATE   ...EVENT/REMARKS...
           ....COUNTY LOCATION....

1000 PM    4 E GOLVA                 ND   HEAVY RAIN
07/25/01   GOLDEN VALLEY                  FLASH FLOODING RESULTED
                                          IN SEVERAL DEAD
                                          LIVESTOCK. . REPORTED
                                          BY HAM RADIO OPERATOR.
Special weather statement, Jul 26, 4:46 PM CDT, 1 hour 49 minutes before
NDZ001-009-017-262245-

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WILLISTON ND
446 PM CDT (346 PM MDT) THU JUL 26 2001

AT 440 PM CDT RADAR IN WILLISTON INDICATED AN AREA OF THUNDERSTORMS
APPROACHING FROM NORTHEAST MONTANA. THESE THUNDERSTORMS ARE MOVING
TO THE EAST AT 20 TO 25 MPH. HEAVY RAIN...GUSTY WINDS AND
OCCASIONAL LIGHTNING ARE THE MAIN THREAT WITH THESE PARTICULAR
STORMS...HOWEVER DIVIDE...WILLIAMS AND MCKENZIE COUNTICES STILL
REMAIN UNDER A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH UNTIL 10 PM CDT. STAY
TUNED TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO FOR THE LATEST.

RV

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.

Bismarck Municip, ND (KBIS), 00:00Z

0.4 hours after it, 208 km from the path. July 27, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Bismarck Municip, ND at 00:00Z on 2001-07-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1482 joules per kilogram, CIN -19, lifted condensation level 906 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, Bismarck Municip, ND at 00:00Z on 2001-07-27The 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 68 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 34 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
1482 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-19 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3033 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
906 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
8 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
68 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
113 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.6
Supercell composite
5.1
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Williston (ISN), 63 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

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

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of July 26, 2001

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 262:15 PM MDTF0Adams, CO0.150
July 264:30 PM MDTF0Campbell, WY1.020
July 264:40 PM MDTF0Campbell, WY1.020
July 266:40 PM CDTF0Burke, ND0.040
July 269:20 PM EDTF0Charlotte, FL0.110$3,000

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.