Tornadoes · United States · Wisconsin · 2000

F0 tornado, Forestville, Wisconsin, July 13, 2000

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Door County on July 13, 2000, touching down at 3:55 PM CDT and reaching 50 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.

  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
July 13, 2000
Touchdown
3:55 PM CDT (20:55 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Door County
Touchdown point
44.700, -87.480
Lift-off point
44.700, -87.480
Record number
404

What the Weather Service recorded

Sunny skies and lingering low level moisture allowed the atmosphere to destabilize. Weak surface troughs combined with upper support to initiate storms. The storms downed trees and power lines and dropped large hail as they moved through northeast Wisconsin. Two people were injured by quarter size hail at a golf course in Alaska (Kewaunee co.). A tornado briefly touched down northeast of Forestville (Door co.) with one of the storms.

Brief touchdown

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

The warnings

5 minutes of warning. NWS GRB issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:50 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:17 UTC20:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGRB
20:40 UTC21:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGRB
20:50 UTC21:15 UTCTornado WarningGRB
21:12 UTC21:55 UTCTornado WarningGRB
00:06 UTC00:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGRB

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 19:38 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.

Green Bay/Straub, WI (KGRB), 12:00Z

8.9 hours before the tornado, 55 km from the path. July 13, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Green Bay/Straub, WI at 12:00Z on 2000-07-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 634 joules per kilogram, CIN -42, lifted condensation level 751 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, Green Bay/Straub, WI at 12:00Z on 2000-07-13The 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 72 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 35 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
634 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-42 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
751 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
72 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
93 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.4
0-3 km lapse rate
4.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Green Bay/Straub, WI (KGRB), 00:00Z

3.1 hours after it, 55 km from the path. July 14, 2000.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Green Bay/Straub, WI at 00:00Z on 2000-07-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 928 joules per kilogram, CIN -13, lifted condensation level 1875 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, Green Bay/Straub, WI at 00:00Z on 2000-07-14The 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 116 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 41 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
928 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-13 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1424 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1875 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
41 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
116 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
202 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
3.8
0-3 km lapse rate
8.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Sturgeon Bay (SUE), 17 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
18:55 UTC84.266.2240° 11 kt151011.2
19:55 UTC84.264.4260° 11 kt191010.5
20:55 UTC69.862.6170° 17 kt431010.8
21:55 UTC71.666.2200° 6 kt1010.5

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of July 13, 2000

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 131:00 PM CDTF1Franklin, TX0.750

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.