Tornadoes · United States · Rhode Island · 2000

F0 tornado, Foster, Rhode Island, August 16, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Providence County on August 16, 2000, touching down at 3:00 PM EDT and reaching 10 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
August 16, 2000
Touchdown
3:00 PM EDT (19:00 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Providence County
Touchdown point
41.850, -71.770
Lift-off point
41.850, -71.770
Record number
471

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak tornado briefly touched down in a high elevation portion of North Foster. The location was on East Killingly Road, about 2 miles east of the Connecticut state line, at an elevation of 670 feet. The damage was isolated, with a large part of a tall pine tree snapped off near the top, and large branches near one foot in diameter taken down. Large limbs were broken off an oak tree adjacent to the pine. An apple tree was downed, and a six-foot wooden table was overturned. Aside from this, there was no damage evident anywhere else in the vicinity.Based upon the damage observed, the tornado was rated an F0, with wind speeds of 40 to 72 mph. The path length was only 0.2 mile and the width was 15 yards. The funnel was observed moving from southwest to northeast.Also that afternoon, another severe thunderstorm dropped dime size hail in Coventry.

Brief weak tornado

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

The warnings

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

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
19:15 UTC19:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningBOX

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:19 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.

Brookhaven, NY (KOKX), 12:00Z

7.0 hours before the tornado, 143 km from the path. August 16, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brookhaven, NY at 12:00Z on 2000-08-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 770 joules per kilogram, CIN -81, lifted condensation level 986 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, Brookhaven, NY at 12:00Z on 2000-08-16The 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 150 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 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
770 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-81 J/kg
Surface CAPE
442 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
986 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
150 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
203 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.4
Supercell composite
2.6
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Brookhaven, NY (KOKX), 00:00Z

5.0 hours after it, 143 km from the path. August 17, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Brookhaven, NY at 00:00Z on 2000-08-17Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -89365, lifted condensation level 2174 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Brookhaven, NY at 00:00Z on 2000-08-17The 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 -6 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-89365 J/kg
Surface CAPE
17 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2174 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-6 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
81 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Pawtucket (Awos) (SFZ), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
17:15 UTC71.671.6210° 3 kt1008.8
17:35 UTC73.471.6220° 5 kt1008.5
17:55 UTC75.271.6200° 3 kt1008.1
18:15 UTC75.269.8280° 4 kt1008.1
18:35 UTC78.871.6260° 4 kt1008.1
18:55 UTC78.869.8280° 5 kt1008.1
19:15 UTC7769.8300° 3 kt1007.8VCTS
19:35 UTC71.666.2270° 5 kt181008.5TS
19:55 UTC69.868290° 4 kt1008.5VCTS
20:15 UTC69.869.8300° 6 kt1008.5
20:35 UTC73.469.8290° 6 kt1008.5
20:55 UTC73.462.6310° 8 kt151008.8

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

The radar

The Boston radar (KBOX), 54 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:58 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in Rhode IslandEvery tornado in Rhode Island since 1950Warnings in force in Rhode Island nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 16, 2000

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 1612:35 PM CDTF1, CT1.540$10,000

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.