Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2001
F0 tornado, Brazoria, Texas, December 12, 2001
This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Brazoria County on December 12, 2001, touching down at 2:30 AM CST and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $200,000 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
- December 12, 2001
- Touchdown
- 2:30 AM CST (08:30 UTC)
- Path length
- 1.0 miles (1.6 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $200,000
- County
- Brazoria County
- Touchdown point
- 29.050, -95.580
- Lift-off point
- 29.050, -95.580
- Record number
- 25
What the Weather Service recorded
An F1 Tornado touched down 5 miles southwest of Brazoria. Several homes in the Lazy Oak Ranch Subdivision on CR 461A had roof damage. A machine shop on CR 461 sustained heavy damage, along with the cars and boats in its parking lot. There were no injuries. Numerous trees were down from the San Bernard River to the Lazy Oak subdivision. Reported by Emergency Management.
An F0 Tornado touched down in the city of Brazoria. There was roof and structural damage to homes and businesses, in a 10 block area, along TX Highway 36 in Brazoria. A 175 foot internet tower was blown down, signs were bent over, and minor roof damage to Brazoria Elementary school. No injuries. Reported by Emergency Management
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
31 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 07:59 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 08:45 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07:59 UTC | 08:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | HGX |
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 05:58 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
8.5 hours before the tornado, 226 km from the path. December 12, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 73 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -123 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 30 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 709 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 46 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 168 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 188 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.8 K/km
Corpus Christi, TX (KCRP), 12:00Z
3.5 hours after it, 226 km from the path. December 12, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 202 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -197 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 110 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 825 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 49 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 36 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 204 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 176 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.0 K/km
The surface observations
Angleton/Lake Jacks (LBX), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:35 UTC | 71.6 | 71.6 | 170° 18 kt | 23 | 1012.9 | RA BR |
| 06:53 UTC | 72 | 71 | 170° 17 kt | 1012.9 | -RA | |
| 07:07 UTC | 71.6 | 71.6 | 170° 16 kt | 1012.9 | -RA | |
| 07:25 UTC | 71.6 | 71.6 | 180° 15 kt | 1012.9 | -RA | |
| 07:53 UTC | 72 | 71 | 180° 14 kt | 1012.9 | RA BR | |
| 08:17 UTC | 71.6 | 71.6 | 170° 17 kt | 21 | 1012.9 | -RA BR |
| 08:25 UTC | 71.6 | 71.6 | 170° 17 kt | 1012.5 | +RA BR | |
| 08:34 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 130° 16 kt | 22 | 1011.5 | -RA BR |
| 08:53 UTC | 73 | 72 | 180° 18 kt | 24 | 1012.2 | |
| 09:01 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 170° 17 kt | 25 | 1012.2 | -RA BR |
| 09:14 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 170° 16 kt | 23 | 1012.2 | -RA |
| 09:38 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 170° 19 kt | 27 | 1012.5 | +RA BR |
| 09:53 UTC | 73 | 72 | 170° 16 kt | 1012.2 | ||
| 10:01 UTC | 71.6 | 71.6 | 180° 18 kt | 24 | 1012.2 | +RA BR |
| 10:05 UTC | 71.6 | 71.6 | 160° 12 kt | 24 | 1011.5 | +RA BR |
| 10:11 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 190° 24 kt | 40 | 1012.2 | RA BR |
| 10:22 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 160° 21 kt | 26 | 1011.5 | -RA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Houston radar (KHGX), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:27 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 December 12, 2001
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 12 | 2:20 AM CST | F1 | Brazoria, TX | 1.5 | 75 | $200,000 | ||
| December 12 | 11:12 AM CST | F1 | Beauregard Parish, LA | 4.0 | 20 | $150,000 | ||
| December 12 | 3:55 PM CST | F0 | Tensas Parish, LA | 0.2 | 30 | $1,000 |
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.