Tornadoes · United States · South Dakota · 2000

F0 tornado, Salem to Canistota, South Dakota, July 11, 2000

From Salem to Canistota, this F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across McCook County on July 11, 2000, touching down at 6:59 PM CDT and reaching 50 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 11, 2000
Touchdown
6:59 PM CDT (23:59 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
McCook County
Touchdown point
43.600, -97.300
Lift-off point
43.600, -97.300
Record number
428

What the Weather Service recorded

A brief tornado caused no reported damage.

A brief tornado caused no reported damage.

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

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.

Aberdeen, SD (KABR), 12:00Z

12.0 hours before the tornado, 169 km from the path. July 11, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Aberdeen, SD at 12:00Z on 2000-07-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 683 joules per kilogram, CIN -84, lifted condensation level 957 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, Aberdeen, SD at 12:00Z on 2000-07-11The 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 105 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 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
683 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-84 J/kg
Surface CAPE
35 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
957 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
105 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
119 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.4
0-3 km lapse rate
4.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Aberdeen, SD (KABR), 00:00Z

0.0 hours before the tornado, 169 km from the path. July 12, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Aberdeen, SD at 00:00Z on 2000-07-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 228 joules per kilogram, CIN -111, lifted condensation level 933 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, Aberdeen, SD at 00:00Z on 2000-07-12The 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 -76 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 39 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
228 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-111 J/kg
Surface CAPE
846 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
933 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-76 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-23 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-0.0
Supercell composite
-0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Sioux Falls (FSD), 44 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.

The radar

The Sioux Falls radar (KFSD), 46 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:56 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 South DakotaEvery tornado in South Dakota since 1950Warnings in force in South Dakota nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 11, 2000

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 111:45 PM CDTF0Brown, SD0.110
July 114:49 PM EDTF0Broward, FL0.110
July 115:16 PM CDTF0Kingsbury, SD0.150
July 115:36 PM CDTF0Kingsbury, SD0.150
July 115:55 PM CDTF2Lake, SD2.0100$50,000
July 116:55 PM CDTF0McCook, SD0.150
July 116:56 PM CDTF0Minnehaha, SD0.150
July 118:36 PM CDTF0Osceola, IA0.150

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.