Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2001

F0 tornado, Dayton, Texas, November 26, 2001

This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Liberty County on November 26, 2001, touching down at 12:15 PM CST and reaching 15 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $20,000 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
November 26, 2001
Touchdown
12:15 PM CST (18:15 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
15 yards (14 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$20,000
County
Liberty County
Touchdown point
30.050, -94.880
Lift-off point
30.050, -94.880
Record number
569

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado touched down in Dayton, at Highway 321 and FM 1008, damaging a county equipment barn roof on Sawmill Road, and ripping down power lines.

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)ExpiredProductOffice
20:32 UTC21:00 UTCTornado WarningHGX
00:06 UTC00:45 UTCTornado 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 16:42 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.

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 12:00Z

6.3 hours before the tornado, 162 km from the path. November 26, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 2001-11-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1330 joules per kilogram, CIN -11, lifted condensation level 488 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 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, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 2001-11-26The 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 140 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 34 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
1330 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-11 J/kg
Surface CAPE
119 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
488 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
140 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
179 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
5.1
0-3 km lapse rate
4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z

5.7 hours after it, 162 km from the path. November 27, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 2001-11-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2361 joules per kilogram, CIN -1, lifted condensation level 572 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, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 2001-11-27The 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 122 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 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
2361 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-1 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2494 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
572 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
122 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
146 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.6
Supercell composite
8.5
0-3 km lapse rate
6.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Houston radar (KHGX), 67 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:17 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 November 26, 2001

11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
November 263:57 PM CSTF1Lincoln Parish, LA7.140
November 264:29 PM CSTF1Clark, AR1.475
November 264:48 PM CSTF1Union Parish, LA8.740
November 264:51 PM CSTF1Bienville Parish, LA13.730
November 264:52 PM CSTF1Grenada, MS12.050$350,000
November 264:55 PM CSTF1Webster Parish, LA17.040$45,000
November 265:00 PM CSTF1Union, AR3.930
November 265:47 PM CSTF2Bradley, AR19.8200
November 266:17 PM CSTF2Lincoln, AR10.5150
November 2611:25 PM CSTF3Henry, TN5.0200212$1.5 million
November 2611:50 PM CSTF2Natchitoches Parish, LA15.2100$40,000

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.