Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2001
F0 tornado, Wolfforth, Texas, August 30, 2001
This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Lubbock County on August 30, 2001, touching down at 4:56 PM CDT and reaching 30 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.
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
- August 30, 2001
- Touchdown
- 4:56 PM CDT (21:56 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Lubbock County
- Touchdown point
- 33.500, -101.970
- Lift-off point
- 33.500, -101.970
- Record number
- 361
What the Weather Service recorded
Storm spotters reported a (landspout) tornado near the intersection of 82nd Street and Upland Avenue in the extreme southwestern city limits of Lubbock. The tornado remained nearly stationary over an open field.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:00 UTC | 22:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | LUB |
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 19:36 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.
What forecasters said that day
The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Lubbock, TX wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Aug 30, 3:40 PM CDT, 1 hour 16 minutes earlier.
Area forecast discussion, Aug 30, 3:40 PM CDT, 1 hour 16 minutes before
SOUTH PLAINS AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LUBBOCK TX
340 PM CDT THU AUG 30 2001
AREA OF CONVERGENCE LOCATED FROM THE PANHANDLE INTO EASTERN NEW
MEXICO HAS ASSISTED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THUNDERSTORMS...MAINLY
ACROSS THE WESTERN COUNTIES OF THE CWA. WEAK SHEAR AXIS CONTINUES TO
LINGER JUST SOUTHEAST OF THE COUNTY WARNING AREA. AFTERNOON HEATING
AND ANY MESOSCALE CONVERGENCE WILL INTERACT WITH THE AVAILABLE
MOISTURE TO CAUSE SOME ISOLATED TO WIDELY SCATTERED SHOWERS AND
THUNDERSTORMS. DIFFICULT TO SAY WHEN THIS CYCLE WILL END SO HAVE
KEPT LOW CHANCES OF RAIN THROUGH THE EXTENDED. TEMPERATURES SHOULD
REMAIN NEAR TO SLIGHTLY ABOVE AVERAGE THROUGH NEXT THURSDAY.
FRIONA 60 83 60 85 4111 TULIA 61 84 62 87 4111
BROWNFIELD 63 87 63 88 2111 LUBBOCK 63 87 63 88 2111
CHILDRESS 66 88 65 89 1111 ASPERMONT 68 89 68 89 1111
.LUB...NONE.
MMThe 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.
Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 12:00Z
9.9 hours before the tornado, 174 km from the path. August 30, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 973 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -5 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 546 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 537 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 9 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 42 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 37 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 00:00Z
2.1 hours after it, 174 km from the path. August 31, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 410 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -3 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 590 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2145 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 1 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 2 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 49 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 8.4 K/km
The surface observations
Lubbock International Airport (LBB), 23 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 | 84 | 59 | 160° 3 kt | 1013.5 | ||
| 21:27 UTC | 78.8 | 62.6 | 0° 0 kt | 1013.2 | -RA | |
| 21:53 UTC | 78 | 64 | 140° 9 kt | 1013.2 | ||
| 22:14 UTC | 78.8 | 64.4 | 120° 9 kt | 1013.2 | TS | |
| 22:37 UTC | 66.2 | 60.8 | 350° 21 kt | 33 | 1014.2 | -TSRA |
| 22:53 UTC | 67 | 59 | 30° 11 kt | 17 | 1013.9 | TSRA |
| 23:00 UTC | 69.8 | 57.2 | 90° 6 kt | 21 | 1013.5 | +TSRA |
| 23:11 UTC | 71.6 | 60.8 | 120° 9 kt | 1013.5 | -TSRA | |
| 23:22 UTC | 71.6 | 64.4 | 120° 11 kt | 1012.9 | -RA | |
| 23:53 UTC | 71 | 63 | 130° 7 kt | 1013.2 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
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.
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.