Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2001

F0 tornado, Brazoria, Texas, August 30, 2001

This F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Brazoria County on August 30, 2001, touching down at 9:05 PM CDT and reaching 30 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.

  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
August 30, 2001
Touchdown
9:05 PM CDT (02:05 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Brazoria County
Touchdown point
29.070, -95.570
Lift-off point
29.070, -95.570
Record number
1085

What the Weather Service recorded

A series of upper level disturbances produced heavy rain and some severe weather across the southern portions of southeast Texas. Rainfall rates of one inch per hour for up to 6 hours at a time were recorded in Jackson, Matagorda, and Wharton counties. This led to widespread street flooding with some roads being washed out. Heavy rainfall in Galveston, Brazoria, Fort Bend, and southeastern Harris counties also led to street flooding, as well as water in some homes. The storms also produced three tornadoes causing minor damage and no injuries.

Newspaper reported tornado touched down 2.5 miles southeast of Wild Peach Village.

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

The warnings

20 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:45 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:30 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:29 UTC00:15 UTCTornado WarningHGX
00:49 UTC01:30 UTCTornado WarningHGX
01:20 UTC07:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningHGX
01:45 UTC02:30 UTCTornado WarningHGX
06:05 UTC12:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningHGX
14:55 UTC18:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningHGX
18:00 UTC21:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningHGX

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 01:08 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.

Corpus Christi, TX (KCRP), 00:00Z

2.1 hours before the tornado, 228 km from the path. August 31, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Corpus Christi, TX at 00:00Z on 2001-08-31Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 3264 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 567 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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, Corpus Christi, TX at 00:00Z on 2001-08-31The 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 77 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 10 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
3264 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3456 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
567 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
77 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
80 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Angleton/Lake Jacks (LBX), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:13 UTC75.273.4340° 8 kt1011.2TSRA
00:23 UTC75.273.4350° 18 kt1010.8+TSRA BR
00:30 UTC75.273.4360° 10 kt201011.2+TSRA BR
00:33 UTC75.273.430° 10 kt181011.2+TSRA BR
00:38 UTC75.273.410° 8 kt171011.2TSRA BR
00:53 UTC757320° 12 kt1011.2-TSRA BR
01:26 UTC75.273.4 6 kt1011.9+TSRA BR
01:37 UTC75.273.4 3 kt1011.2+TSRA BR
01:53 UTC75750° 0 kt1011.9VCTS -RA BR
02:19 UTC75.273.4150° 4 kt1011.9+TSRA BR
02:29 UTC75.273.470° 6 kt1011.9TSRA BR
02:40 UTC73.473.470° 10 kt1011.9-TSRA BR
02:53 UTC747360° 11 kt1012.2VCTS -RA
03:10 UTC73.473.460° 8 kt1012.2VCTS
03:17 UTC73.473.450° 9 kt1012.5VCTS -RA
03:21 UTC73.473.450° 8 kt1012.5VCTS
03:42 UTC73.471.640° 7 kt1012.5-RA
03:53 UTC747370° 7 kt1012.2

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

The radar

The Houston radar (KHGX), 65 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:06 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 2001 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 30, 2001

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 304:56 PM CDTF0Lubbock, TX0.130
August 306:25 PM CDTF0Brazoria, TX0.540$40,000
August 306:07 PM MDTF0De Baca, NM0.120

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.