Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2000
F3 tornado, Laguna Park, Texas, May 12, 2000
This F3 tornado ran 7.0 miles across Bosque County on May 12, 2000, touching down at 5:10 PM CDT and reaching 400 yards wide. It killed 2 people, and did $3.0 million 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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
F3158 to 206 mphthis tornado
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- F3
- Date
- May 12, 2000
- Touchdown
- 5:10 PM CDT (22:10 UTC)
- Path length
- 7.0 miles (11.3 km)
- Path width
- 400 yards (366 m)
- Deaths
- 2
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $3.0 million
- County
- Bosque County
- Touchdown point
- 31.900, -97.370
- Lift-off point
- 31.900, -97.370
- Record number
- 210
What the Weather Service recorded
May 12, 2000 - Event NarrativeA cold front moved into North Texas, and became stationary along a Bonham, Dallas, Hillsboro, Goldthwaite line. Numerous hail and wind reports were received. An F-3 tornado touched down near Lake Whitney in the late afternoon hours.The parent storm continued to develop on the south flank, resulting in a long lived wall cloud that moved south through southern Bosque, western McLennan, eastern Coryell, and western Bell counties. While reports of hail and funnels continued through the life of the storm, no additional tornadoes were sighted.
A tornado formed over the central part of Lake Whitney at approximately 1610 CST. The tornado moved south and dissipated near the dam at 1625 CST. The tornado caused two deaths, both of which occurred in the same home, but no other injuries. The most significant damaged occurred at the Lakewood Harbor Subdivision, three miles northwest of the Dam, around 1615 CST. 38 homes were destroyed and 27 others were damaged.
The deaths
2 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.
| Age | Sex | Where | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80 | F | Permanent Home | Direct |
| 70 | M | Permanent Home | Direct |
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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:30 UTC | 22:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FWD |
| 22:12 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FWD |
| 22:14 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | FWD |
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 20:25 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
10.2 hours before the tornado, 104 km from the path. May 12, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1679 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -556 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2842 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 907 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 20 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 38 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 355 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 486 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.7 K/km
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 00:00Z
1.8 hours after it, 104 km from the path. May 13, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 113 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -544 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 172 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2380 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 7 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 54 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 224 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.5 K/km
The surface observations
Waco (ACT), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:53 UTC | 92 | 76 | 170° 13 kt | 1006.8 | ||
| 21:53 UTC | 92 | 76 | 170° 14 kt | 1005.4 | ||
| 22:53 UTC | 88 | 75 | 160° 14 kt | 1006.1 | ||
| 23:07 UTC | 87.8 | 75.2 | 140° 14 kt | 1005.1 | TS | |
| 23:53 UTC | 70 | 68 | 350° 26 kt | 35 | 1007.8 | +TSRA BR |
| 00:01 UTC | 69.8 | 66.2 | 360° 20 kt | 34 | 1007.8 | +TSRA BR |
| 00:08 UTC | 69.8 | 66.2 | 240° 10 kt | 26 | 1009.5 | +TSRA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
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 May 12, 2000
11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 12 | 11:43 AM CDT | F0 | Manitowoc, WI | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 12 | 4:36 PM EDT | F0 | Gladwin, MI | 2.0 | 20 | |||
| May 12 | 4:00 PM CDT | F0 | Logan, IL | 0.3 | 20 | |||
| May 12 | 4:30 PM CDT | F0 | Sangamon, IL | 2.0 | 50 | |||
| May 12 | 5:00 PM CDT | F0 | Macon, IL | 7.0 | 20 | |||
| May 12 | 6:25 PM CDT | F1 | Bond, IL | 9.0 | 50 | $200,000 | ||
| May 12 | 7:43 PM EDT | F0 | Van Buren, MI | 0.1 | 10 | $10,000 | ||
| May 12 | 6:47 PM CDT | F2 | Bond, IL | 1.5 | 100 | |||
| May 12 | 7:50 PM EDT | F1 | Huron, MI | 0.3 | 170 | $60,000 | ||
| May 12 | 7:10 PM CDT | F0 | Fayette, IL | 1.5 | 40 | $10,000 | ||
| May 12 | 12:20 AM CDT | F1 | Woodruff, AR | 8.8 | 100 |
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.