Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2000

F0 tornado, Hoytville, Ohio, May 9, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 4.0 miles across Wood County on May 9, 2000, touching down at 8:10 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 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.

  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 9, 2000
Touchdown
8:10 PM EDT (00:10 UTC)
Path length
4.0 miles (6.4 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$100,000
County
Wood County
Touchdown point
41.180, -83.800
Lift-off point
41.180, -83.680
Record number
870

What the Weather Service recorded

A small tornado touched down just north of Hoytville on Needles Road and damaged two mobile homes. Both mobile homes suffered structural damage and were knocked off foundations. After traveling approximately 100 yards on the ground the tornado lifted back into the sky and then traveled northeast approximately three and one half miles as a funnel cloud. A second brief tornado touchdown occurred three miles northwest of New Baltimore near the intersection of Hammansburg and Wingston Roads. An old mobile home was destroyed at that location.

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

The warnings

11 minutes of warning. NWS CLE issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:59 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:06 UTC20:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningCLE
20:53 UTC21:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningCLE
23:53 UTC01:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningCLE
23:59 UTC01:00 UTCTornado WarningCLE

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 20:49 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.

Detroit, MI (KDTX), 00:00Z

0.2 hours before the tornado, 173 km from the path. May 10, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Detroit, MI at 00:00Z on 2000-05-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 365 joules per kilogram, CIN -33, lifted condensation level 773 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Detroit, MI at 00:00Z on 2000-05-10The 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 159 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 46 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
365 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-33 J/kg
Surface CAPE
710 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
773 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
46 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
159 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
317 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.4
Supercell composite
2.7
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Detroit, MI (KDTX), 12:00Z

11.8 hours after it, 173 km from the path. May 10, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Detroit, MI at 12:00Z on 2000-05-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 4 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 455 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Detroit, MI at 12:00Z on 2000-05-10The 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 -39 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 59 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
4 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
455 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
59 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-39 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
25 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
2.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 9, 2000

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 93:15 PM CDTF0Independence, AR2.020
May 93:35 PM CDTF0Lawrence, AR1.010$1,000
May 94:05 PM CDTF0Greene, AR1.010$1,000
May 94:40 PM CDTF0Craighead, AR4.010$10,000
May 95:07 PM ESTF0Hendricks, IN1.0100
May 98:22 PM EDTF1Lucas, OH0.250$150,000
May 98:23 PM EDTF0Wood, OH0.120

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.