F0 tornado, Wickett, Texas, March 22, 2000

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.

Rating

F0

Date

March 22, 2000

Touchdown

12:50 AM CST (06:50 UTC)

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$300,000

County

Ward County

Touchdown point

31.570, -103.020

Lift-off point

31.580, -103.020

Record number

715

A series of large supercell thunderstorms developed during the late evening and early morrning hours in advance of a strong upper level low pressure system. These storms produced hail up to golfball size, damaging thunderstorm winds, some flash flooding, and one tornado.

A supercell storm moving to the northeast spawned a weak tornado that moved straight north through the heart of Wickett. With the weak nature of the tornado and lack of targets outside of the city, the exact starting and ending points of the tornado could not be determined.Damage included one abandoned mobile home that was overturned and destroyed, several carports and other low-grade roofs dislodged, and utility poles/lines downed. With little structural damage to any substantial dwellings, this tornado was rated in the high end of the F0 category. Vectors into the center of the damage converged at a 90 degree angle.This mesocyclone quickly occluded after exiting Wickett, with the following mesocyclone producing another weak tornado in western Ector County.

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

29 minutes of warning. NWS MAF issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:21 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:15 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:51 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 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.

Wink/Winkler Co. (INK), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 89 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:50 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.

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

17 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.