Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2000

F0 tornado, St Jo, Texas, March 28, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Montague County on March 28, 2000, touching down at 5:24 PM CST 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
March 28, 2000
Touchdown
5:24 PM CST (23:24 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Montague County
Touchdown point
33.700, -97.530
Lift-off point
33.700, -97.530
Record number
697

What the Weather Service recorded

Montague/Cook County Thunderstorm NarrativeThis storm developed near Nocona, in northern Montague county, around 1600 CST, and moved slowly east toward Gainesville. It decreased east of Gainesville in Cooke county shortly before 1900 CST. Visibility was poor, but spotters reported several funnels, two of them briefly touching down in rural areas.

A brief touchdown was reported by spotters near Saint Jo. A mobile home was damaged at the Starkey community. A few vehicles were damaged by hail on Highway 82.

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

The warnings

16 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:08 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:59 UTC22:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningFWD
22:46 UTC23:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningFWD
23:08 UTC23:45 UTCTornado WarningFWD

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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:47 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.

Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 12:00Z

11.4 hours before the tornado, 99 km from the path. March 28, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Fort Worth, TX at 12:00Z on 2000-03-28Temperature 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 -71246, lifted condensation level 1877 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, Fort Worth, TX at 12:00Z on 2000-03-28The 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 232 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 30 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-71246 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1877 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
232 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
249 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 00:00Z

0.6 hours after it, 99 km from the path. March 29, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Fort Worth, TX at 00:00Z on 2000-03-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1241 joules per kilogram, CIN -31, lifted condensation level 1126 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 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, Fort Worth, TX at 00:00Z on 2000-03-29The 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 108 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 52 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 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
1241 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-31 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1555 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1126 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
52 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
108 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
151 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
3.5
0-3 km lapse rate
7.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Ardmore Downtown Exec Airport (1F0), 62 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:35 UTC80.660.8170° 6 kt1000
21:55 UTC80.660.8160° 11 kt151000
22:15 UTC80.660.8160° 8 kt999.7VCTS
22:35 UTC78.859160° 6 kt999.7
22:55 UTC78.862.6150° 11 kt17999.7VCTS
23:15 UTC7764.4180° 8 kt1000.3
23:35 UTC75.264.4160° 10 kt141000-RA
23:55 UTC75.264.4160° 12 kt161000.3TS
00:15 UTC73.464.4180° 8 kt141001.4-RA
00:35 UTC73.464.4180° 8 kt1001-DZ
00:55 UTC73.451.8170° 14 kt241000.7-DZ
01:15 UTC73.446.4150° 11 kt201000

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

The radar

The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 127 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:25 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 TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of March 28, 2000

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 286:18 PM CSTF3Tarrant, TX4.0250280
March 286:20 PM CSTF0Cooke, TX0.110
March 286:20 PM CSTF0Hill, TX0.110
March 287:05 PM CSTF3Tarrant, TX8.0300
March 287:11 PM CSTF0Bexar, TX0.120
March 287:55 PM CSTF0Dallas, TX0.110
March 287:55 PM CSTF0Navarro, TX0.110$10,000
March 288:15 PM CSTF1Navarro, TX3.0250$200,000
March 288:30 PM CSTF0Henderson, TX0.520

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.