Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2000

F0 tornado, Lake Tawakoni, Texas, May 27, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Hunt County on May 27, 2000, touching down at 6:20 PM CDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $2,000 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.

  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
May 27, 2000
Touchdown
6:20 PM CDT (23:20 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$2,000
County
Hunt County
Touchdown point
32.880, -96.050
Lift-off point
32.880, -96.050
Record number
800

What the Weather Service recorded

May 26-27, 2000 - Event NarrativeThunderstorms developed again along numerous boundaries in North Texas. The first area stretched from north of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex to the Red River. These storms occurred mainly on the 26th. Several tornadoes were reported in Young and Jack counties, while several other counties experienced hail and strong winds. On the 27th, the thunderstorms developed further south, in an area from Corsicana to Goldthwaite.

Trees and power lines were blown down by a brief tornado that occurred near the lake.

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

The warnings

27 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:53 UTC, 27 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:53 UTC23:30 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:33 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

11.3 hours before the tornado, 116 km from the path. May 27, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Fort Worth, TX at 12:00Z on 2000-05-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2630 joules per kilogram, CIN -74, lifted condensation level 771 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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 2000-05-27The 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 213 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 20 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
2630 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-74 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3136 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
771 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
213 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
311 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
10.9
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

0.7 hours after it, 116 km from the path. May 28, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Fort Worth, TX at 00:00Z on 2000-05-28Temperature 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 -65497, lifted condensation level 2764 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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 2000-05-28The 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 -138 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 34 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
-65497 J/kg
Surface CAPE
278 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2764 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-138 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-92 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 122 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:21 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 May 27, 2000

10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 273:26 AM CDTF1Independence, AR3.130
May 2712:47 PM CDTF1Mississippi, AR3.5201$20,000
May 271:24 PM CDTF0Archer, TX0.220
May 271:28 PM CDTF0Archer, TX1.020$3,000
May 272:40 PM CDTF0Jack, TX0.220
May 272:40 PM CDTF1Benton, TN4.9100
May 272:46 PM CDTF3Houston, TN17.2500$1.3 million
May 273:10 PM CDTF0Montgomery, TN0.350
May 275:42 PM CDTF0Fannin, TX0.220
May 276:00 PM CDTF0Hunt, TX0.220$2,000

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.