During the evening hours of March 28, 2000, an intense F3 tornado struck Downtown Fort Worth, Texas, causing significant damage to numerous buildings and skyscrapers as well as two deaths.

The tornado was part of a larger severe weather outbreak that caused widespread storms across Texas and Oklahoma in late-March, spurred primarily by the moist and unstable atmospheric environment over the South Central United States as a result of an eastward-moving upper-level low and shortwave trough.

Various high-rise and low-rise buildings in downtown Fort Worth sustained various degrees of structural damage including numerous broken windows.

Concurrently, a cold front extended zonally tracked south across the Great Plains before eventually stalling near the Red River valley, providing an additional focus area for storm development.

Favorable conditions for severe weather were expected ahead of the upper-level low over areas of North Texas; accordingly, the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) issued a moderate risk for severe weather for the region, citing an unstable atmosphere caused by steep lapse rates of 7.5-8.0 °C/km and high convective available potential energy values.

[7][8] With the low-pressure system now in place, the air mass over the Red River valley became increasingly unstable, featuring surface temperatures near 90 °F (32 °C) and high dew points caused by the northerly surge of moisture induced by the subtropical jet.

[3] Initially, computer models indicated that the day's storms would primarily feature strong winds and hail with a minimal risk for tornadoes, with severe weather occurring mainly north of the stalled front in Oklahoma.

[10] The strong southwesterly winds aloft from the curved subtropical jet over the region helped to ventilate the storms, allowing for their persistence and intensity.

[10] The most favorable environment for tornadoes was initially over the Red River but shifted southward to include the Dallas–Fort Worth area in the evening hours.

[23] Radar imagery showed that the supercell was rapidly organizing, developing a bounded weak echo region and hook echo—radar signatures that hint at a strong and potentially tornadic thunderstorm—in less than a half-hour.

The first signs of damage occurred in the River Oaks area along SH 183 where metal roof panels were stripped off of a vacant fast food restaurant.

Tornadic debris—including rooftop air conditioning units, gravel, and other detached construction—was thrown by the tornado at the school's western façade, causing minor damage.

[3] At the intersection of West Sixth Street and University Drive, the tornado abruptly turned east from its initial southeast heading,[3] bringing it over the Linwood subdivision at around 6:22 p.m. CST (00:22 UTC).

Several nearby metal buildings were toppled before the tornado once again crossed the Trinity River, entering Fort Worth's central business district.

Although the tornado dissipated just east of downtown Fort Worth, the parent supercell thunderstorm continued to cause damage, albeit minor and sporadic, to roofs, trees, fences, and billboards roughly 3 mi (4.8 km) near Interstate 30 and Brentwood Stair Road.