Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2001
F0 tornado, Evadale, Texas, October 12, 2001
This F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Jasper County on October 12, 2001, touching down at 4:05 PM CDT and reaching 10 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
- October 12, 2001
- Touchdown
- 4:05 PM CDT (21:05 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.5 miles (0.8 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Jasper County
- Touchdown point
- 30.320, -94.070
- Lift-off point
- 30.320, -94.070
- Record number
- 483
What the Weather Service recorded
The same storm system that produced a tornado in Jefferson and Hardin counties produced another tornado in southern Jasper County near Evadale. It was witnessed by several firefighters, and remained in open fields for less than a minute and caused no damage.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
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 Lake Charles, LA wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Oct 12, 1:46 PM CDT, 2 hours 19 minutes earlier.
Area forecast discussion, Oct 12, 1:46 PM CDT, 2 hours 19 minutes before
SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA AND SOUTHEAST TEXAS FORECAST DISCUSSION...COR
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAKE CHARLES LA
146 PM CDT FRI OCT 12 2001
...CORRECTION FOR AEX POP FROM 70 TO 40...
.TONIGHT...
GULF AIR ADVECTION STRENGTHENS. EXPECT INCREASING CLOUDINESS AS GULF
AIR OVERRIDES FILM OF DRIER AIR AT THE SURFACE. THE ATMOSPHERE IS
BEING PRE-CONDITIONED FOR UPCOMING HEAVY RAIN EVENT. INCOMING GULF
AIR SHOULD KEEP MINIMUMS ON THE WARM SIDE (ABOUT 10 TO 15 F DEGREES
ABOVE NORMAL).
.SATURDAY...
A HEAVY RAIN EVENT SEEMS LIKELY. STRONG ADIABATIC LIFT WILL BE IN
PLACE. THE NGM TRAJECTORY MODEL COMPUTES A NET VERTICAL DISPLACEMENT
OF THE 700 MB SURFACE AT +80 MB WITHIN A 12 HOUR PERIOD). OTHER
FACTORS NOTED ACROSS THE FORECAST AREA INCLUDE...700-300 MB THICKNESS
DIFLUENCE...700-300 MB QUASI-GEOSTROPHIC LIFT...AND 1000-500 MB MEAN
RH NEAR 90 PERCENT.
MARGINAL INSTABILITY SEEMS TO BE THE ONLY LIMITING FACTOR. THE 700-
300 MB LAPSE RATES ARE RUNNING NEAR 6.5 C DEG PER KM...WHICH IS
MARGINALLY UNSTABLE (FOR A CLOUDY AIR PARCEL UNDERGOING AVERAGE
ENTRAINMENT IN A MOIST ENVIRONMENT).
AFTER TALKING WITH THE SURROUNDING OFFICES...I HAVE DECIDED TO ISSUE
A FLASH FLOOD WATCH FOR SOUTHEAST TEXAS...AND FOR WEST CENTRAL AND
SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA. ALSO I WILL ISSUE A SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
(HEAVY RAIN OUTLOOK) TO COVER THE REMAINDER (EAST CENTRAL AND SOUTH
CENTRAL LOUISIANA).
SPECIAL THANKS TO HOUSTON, NEW ORLEANS, SHREVEPORT OFFICES AND TO
THE HYDRO-METEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER.
.LCH...FFA (FLOOD WATCH) TXZ180>182-201-215-216
... LAZ027-030-031-041-042-051
.PRELIMINARY NUMBERS...
AEX 70/78/55/76/49/73/50 4830000
BPT 73/80/56/77/55/75/58 4800000
LCH 72/80/56/77/53/75/57 4800000
LFT 70/83/58/76/52/73/54 4830000
TRARESIn the hours before
Local storm report, Oct 12, 3:46 PM CDT, 19 minutes before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAKE CHARLES, LA
346 PM CDT FRI OCT 12 2001
TIME(CDT) .....CITY LOCATION.....STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS...
....COUNTY LOCATION....
0300 PM 5 E SOUR LAKE TX TORNADO
10/12/01 HARDIN A TORNADO WAS SEEN BY
SEVERAL PEOPLE NEAR HWY
105...NO DAMAGED SINCE IT
WAS OVER UNPOPULATED ZONE.
0304 PM 2 W BEVIL OAKS TX TORNADO
10/12/01 JEFFERSON TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN NEAR
HWY 105. SEVERAL REPORTS
FROM MOTORISTS.
FNLocal storm report, Oct 12, 3:54 PM CDT, 11 minutes before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAKE CHARLES, LA
354 PM CDT FRI OCT 12 2001
TIME(CDT) .....CITY LOCATION.....STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS...
....COUNTY LOCATION....
0340 PM LUMBERTON TX TORNADO
10/12/01 HARDIN TREES KNOCKED DOWN...NO
INJURIES REPORTED.
FNSpecial weather statement, Oct 12, 3:54 PM CDT, 11 minutes before
LAZ028-029-032-033-043>045-052>055-130900- HEAVY RAIN OUTLOOK NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAKE CHARLES LA 354 PM CDT FRI OCT 12 2001 ...HEAVY RAINS FOR SATURDAY... AN APPROACHING TEXAS COLD FRONT WILL LIFT A DEEP GULF AIR MASS... THUS GENERATING TROPICAL DOWNPOURS. ALSO SOME OF THESE THUNDERSTORMS COULD BECOME SEVERE. AVERAGE RAINFALL TOTALS WILL RANGE BETWEEN ONE AND TWO INCHES...WITH LOCAL AMOUNTS NEAR THREE INCHES. THE RAINS SHOULD BE TAPERING OFF BY LATE AFTERNOON. TRARES
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
9.1 hours before the tornado, 86 km from the path. October 12, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 534 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -35 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 167 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 474 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 26 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 20 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 86 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 135 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.0 K/km
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z
2.9 hours after it, 86 km from the path. October 13, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2537 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -1 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3861 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 640 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 70 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 102 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.9
- Supercell composite
- 6.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.0 K/km
The surface observations
Beaumont - Port Arthur (BPT), 41 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Lake Charles radar (KLCH), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:04 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 October 12, 2001
16 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 12 | 3:00 PM CDT | F0 | Hardin, TX | 2.5 | 10 | |||
| October 12 | 3:40 PM CDT | F0 | Hardin, TX | 0.5 | 10 | $2,000 | ||
| October 12 | 4:52 PM CDT | F0 | Liberty, TX | 2.0 | 50 | $40,000 | ||
| October 12 | 7:50 PM CDT | F2 | Wise, TX | 2.5 | 440 | 1 | $200,000 | |
| October 12 | 8:00 PM CDT | F2 | Wise, TX | 9.0 | 590 | 1 | $750,000 | |
| October 12 | 8:54 PM CDT | F1 | Bosque, TX | 1.5 | 75 | $30,000 | ||
| October 12 | 8:58 PM CDT | F2 | McLennan, TX | 4.2 | 150 | $100,000 | ||
| October 12 | 9:00 PM CDT | F0 | Bosque, TX | 2.0 | 50 | |||
| October 12 | 9:20 PM CDT | F1 | Denton, TX | 0.1 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| October 12 | 9:30 PM CDT | F3 | Gillespie, TX | 2.5 | 400 | 5 | $1.0 million | |
| October 12 | 9:40 PM CDT | F0 | Uvalde, TX | 0.5 | 100 | $30,000 | ||
| October 12 | 9:57 PM CDT | F2 | McLennan, TX | 6.2 | 150 | $500,000 | ||
| October 12 | 10:15 PM CDT | F1 | Hill, TX | 0.7 | 50 | $40,000 | ||
| October 12 | 10:30 PM CDT | F1 | Medina, TX | 3.0 | 200 | $200,000 | ||
| October 12 | 10:40 PM CDT | F2 | Medina, TX | 1.2 | 500 | 25 | $20 million | |
| October 12 | 12:50 AM CDT | F1 | Brazos, TX | 1.0 | 50 | $60,000 |
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.