F-2

Peter Yang photographed the funnel cloud from Blockhouse Creek about 3 miles away as I stood directly underneath the cloud base seen at the bottom of the funnel. The cloud base was rotating very slowly and drifted slowly Northeast. Once the funnel became a tornado it reversed it's direction and followed a Southeast track through Mason Creek. I was standing on my front porch when the tornado reached my house. Using the Fujita Scale table below as a guide, it appears that we received F1 level damage while the houses behind ours sustained damage closer to F2 levels.

This is a simulated ground zero view I had of the tornado at the moment just before I retreated to cover just milliseconds before it hit Mike and Kelly Bouldin's home. Ronald Taylor's roof is the simulated debris here, and this image depicts the picture in my mind that I shall never forget. Notice that except for the swirling vortex of roofing materials, the tornado was otherwise invisible.

The Bouldin house on Greening Way showing classic F2 tornado damage. This is where I began my house to house search for injured neighbors. I found a very shaken but uninjured Bouldin family inside.

TThe side of Ron Taylor's home showing the area very near touchdown.

Front of our house showing F1 levels of roof damage. Our Border Collie Shiloh escaped the tornado through the opening in the fence and hid under a bed for hours. She was presumed lost until I noticed a tail wagging under the edge of the bed some 3 1/2 hours later. Fortunately, the tornadic wind blew and held both front doors open for her.

Path of the twister through our backyard. Amazingly our storage building suffered no damage other than minor paint scuffs from flying debris. The storage building one door down in back of ours was tipped and rolled into the neigboring back yard.

The top was ripped off of my weather instrument shelter leaving the thermometer and charcoal fluid untouched. The late Lou Withrow was the MIC at the Austin National Weather Service office when I received my Severe Weather Spotter Training. Lou was my Skywarn instructor and helped me design and build the instrument shelter. Lou provided the plans from his NWS office filing cabinet. The flood gauge was his idea.

A shot showing the general direction that the twister came from and the damaged deck railing that I built just one month before the storm.

Only posts remain in a 125 foot fence as Caroline and John Olenoski survey their F2 category roof damage. Only three fence sections can be accounted for. The rest were swept away.

Largest section of our F1 roof damage. Building materials donated by Cashway Lumber appear at the edge of Mason Creek Blvd.

®

Skywarn® is a nationwide network of trained severe weather spotters. The National Weather Service does not sponsor spotters directly or fund their activities, but they do provide the training for spotters. Modern Doppler radar is excellent for tracking and forecasting severe weather events; however, it cannot equal or replace trained eyes in the field.

Severe weather observation near storms can be risky; therefore, fame and glory is not what the Skywarn program is about. Safety is always first. We are driven solely by a desire to relay accurate realtime information to the weather service in an effort to save lives and property via the earliest public warnings possible.

E-Mail message I received from the National Weather Service on March 22, 2000:

Stephen,

Thank you for your message. Although I only had time for a quick scan at your web page, it looked great. I've bookmarked it for when I can take my time and really enjoy reviewing it. I agree that the damage in your subdivision was F2 in places, with most of the damage in the F0 or F1 range.

Thank you for your account in this tornado outbreak - it will be very helpful when I write our Storm Data Report.

Larry Eblen

---

Official Storm Data Report
Larry Eblen-MIC National Weather Service Date: Unknown
A strong weather system produced scattered showers and thunderstorms over Central Texas on the afternoon of Thursday March 16. Funnel clouds were first reported by the public and by the Leander Police Department near 4 pm that afternoon. A small, short-lived F0 tornado struck near the police station near 4 pm, with no significant damage. Shortly after 4 pm, another rope-shaped funnel was observed west of Leander. Photographs of this developing tornado indicate a generally-long and rope-shaped structure that slowly twisted and wound its way to the surface. The tornado touched down in the western part of Mason Creek Subdivision located on the west side of Leander and moved slowly eastward. Damage near the tornado touchdown was F0 level approaching F1. It damaged eaves of roofs, took shingles off roofs and knocked down large tree branches. More significant damage was noted along Greening Way and Mason Creek Boulevard in the west and central part of the subdivision, where several large trees of over 1 foot diameter were uprooted. This indicated damage in the lower levels of the F2 scale. In addition, the tornado had destroyed approximately 30 percent of one home. Again, this indicated minimal F2-level damage. The tornado began to lift as it approached Old Bagdad Road on the eastern side of the subdivision. Most of the damage in this part of the subdivision was at the F0 level. In all, the tornado damaged 24 homes and several outbuildings. The tornado was estimated at 200 yards wide with a path length of 1.5 miles.



Steve Culp
Severe Weather Spotter
Western Williamson County, Texas
HAM Radio Callsign W5SDC

In memory of

This website is dedicated to Lou Withrow (1936-1995). As mentioned earlier, Lou took the time and helped me design and build the instrument shelter for my first outdoor home weather station that was decapitated by an F-2 around five years after his death. I attended Mr. Withrow's Skywarn severe weather spotter training class at the fire station in Granite Shoals, TX. Back in those days, he was the meteorologist-in-charge at the national weather service office in Austin located at the old Robert Mueller airport.