Skip to data content Skip to data search
Earth Observing Laboratory
Field Data Archive

COMET_CASE_028: COMET Case Study 028:Fort Worth Tornado

Summary

On the evening of 28 March 2000, two tornados struck Fort Worth, Arlington, and Grand Prairie, Texas. The Fort Worth Tornado touched down west of the city, and moved through the downtown area. The tornado was rated an F2 on the Fujita scale at its strongest point. The Arlington tornado started as an F3, and varied from F2 to F0 throughout its 6.5 mile track. The damages from these tornados was estimated at $450 million in the Fort Worth area. 5 F2's, and 8 F0-F1's. While southern Louisiana's annual average for tornados is 13 (1950-1995), it hosted 12 tornados on 1-2 January. All of the tornados were indicated by WSR-88D radars in Lake Charles and Fort Polk, Louisiana. The average lead time was an impressive 24 minutes. There was one fatality in Texas, but, given the severity of the outbreak and the fact that it happened overnight, it is fortunate that there were not more people injured or killed

Objectives:

This case provides an example of a Texas severe weather event, and allows an in-depth study of the severe weather mechanisms in the Southern plains and Texas.

Data access

Datasets from this project

Additional information

GCMD Name A - C > COMET > Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education, and Training > 5c70d6af-b73d-418e-a793-47481302eeb5
Related links

Temporal coverage

Begin Date 2000-03-28 00:00:00
End Date 2000-03-29 23:59:59

Spatial coverage


Map data from IBCSO, IBCAO, and Global Topography.

Maximum (North) Latitude: 39.00, Minimum (South) Latitude: 27.50
Minimum (West) Longitude: -105.00, Maximum (East) Longitude: -89.50

Related projects

Parent project COMET: COMET Case Studies
NSF

This material is based upon work supported by the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, a major facility sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation and managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.