F1 tornado, Dayton, Washington, January 16, 2000

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

F1

Date

January 16, 2000

Touchdown

9:00 AM PST (17:00 UTC)

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Columbia County

Touchdown point

46.320, -118.000

Lift-off point

46.320, -117.980

Record number

12

On January 16th a strong occluded front crossed the Columbia Basin. This front developed from a deep low pressure system off the coast of Washington. A line of convective showers along the front brought wind gusts of 46 mph to Walla Walla, which is 25 miles southwest of Dayton. At 9 am, several witnesses reported that a tornado developed just south of US Highway 12 one mile southwest of Dayton. At this location, the second story of a barn was damaged and a mobile home was flipped over. The tornado then followed an intermittent path for around one mile through the south side of Dayton. This path followed the floodplain of the Touchet River, which is just to the north of Rock Hill. Rock Hill is a 700 ft. ridge just to the southwest of Dayton. Several large trees were felled, including a 50 yard wide section of a line of trees along the east side of the river. In the south side of Dayton, an elementary school had several shingles removed and damage to the roof's trim. Finally, considerable damage occurred to a house on Peabody Hill just southeast of Dayton. A large conifer fell and hit the side of a house. A brick chimmey collapsed on this same house as well.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in WashingtonEvery tornado in Washington since 1950Warnings in force in Washington nowThe forecast where you are

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.