Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2000
F0 tornado, Amarillo, Texas, October 23, 2000
This F0 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Randall and Potter counties on October 23, 2000, touching down at 2:10 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
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 mph
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
- F0
- Date
- October 23, 2000
- Touchdown
- 2:10 PM CDT (19:10 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.4 miles (0.6 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $10,000
- Counties
- Randall and Potter counties
- Touchdown point
- 35.150, -101.750
- Lift-off point
- 35.270, -101.730
- Record number
- 1064
What the Weather Service recorded
Severe thunderstorms developed across the southwestern and south-central Texas panhandle producing a tornado over the eastern sections of the city of Amarillo along with flooding rains and large hail across the southwestern Texas panhandle.
The tornado initially touched down near Loop 335 and Whitaker Road five miles southeast of Amarillo. As the tornado moved north...it touched down two or three additional times during its lifetime for only a few seconds each time as it moved across the eastern sections of Amarillo. The tornado caused minor damage to a barn and a few telephone poles in Randall county before moving into Potter county. The tornado path width and length was estimated.
The tornado...which began in Randall county...touched down three or four times during its lifetime for only a few seconds each time as it moved across the eastern sections of Amarillo. The tornado caused minor damage at a water park and also a grain elevator in northern Potter county before dissipating. The tornado path width and length was estimated.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:11 UTC | 19:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | AMA |
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 16:15 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.
Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 12:00Z
7.2 hours before the tornado, 4 km from the path. October 23, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 775 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -12 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1155 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 619 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 46 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 102 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 64 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.4
- Supercell composite
- 2.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.9 K/km
Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 00:00Z
4.8 hours after it, 4 km from the path. October 24, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 606 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -1 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 361 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 545 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 0 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 0 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.1 K/km
The surface observations
Amarillo - Rick Husband Intl (AMA), 3 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17:14 UTC | 66.2 | 60.8 | 120° 14 kt | 1026.8 | ||
| 17:53 UTC | 67 | 61 | 110° 16 kt | 1026.1 | ||
| 18:06 UTC | 66.2 | 60.8 | 120° 16 kt | 1025.7 | ||
| 18:53 UTC | 64 | 62 | 140° 12 kt | 1025.4 | RA BR | |
| 19:06 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 120° 9 kt | 1025.1 | +RA BR | |
| 19:11 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 120° 9 kt | 1024.7 | -TSRA BR | |
| 19:24 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 120° 13 kt | 1024.7 | -TSRA | |
| 19:45 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 130° 11 kt | 1024.4 | TS | |
| 19:53 UTC | 64 | 63 | 130° 12 kt | 1024.4 | BR | |
| 20:20 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 120° 14 kt | 1023.7 | ||
| 20:36 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 110° 12 kt | 1023.7 | BR | |
| 20:44 UTC | 64.4 | 62.6 | 110° 13 kt | 1024 | ||
| 20:53 UTC | 66 | 63 | 110° 13 kt | 1024 |
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 October 23, 2000
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 23 | 3:35 AM CDT | F0 | Bexar, TX | 0.5 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| October 23 | 12:36 PM MDT | F0 | San Juan, NM | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| October 23 | 12:51 PM MDT | F0 | San Juan, NM | 0.1 | 20 |
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.