F2 tornado, Guy to Wooster, Arkansas, May 4, 2003

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   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

F2

Date

May 4, 2003

Touchdown

7:34 PM CDT (00:34 UTC)

Path length

14.5 miles (23.3 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Counties

Faulkner and Cleburne counties

Touchdown point

35.280, -92.280

Lift-off point

35.430, -92.020

Record number

321

A strong tornado touched down in northern Faulkner County. Numerous trees were Blown down along the path of the tornado. The tornado moved northeast into Cleburne County.

A strong tornado moved out of Faulkner County and into Cleburne County about 2.5 miles southwest of Hopewell. The tornado destroyed a couple of barns and outbuildings. Several houses and mobile homes were also damaged. The tornado also destroyed a mobile home. The mobile home was thrown against an old milking barn, which was also destroyed. A travel trailer was overturned and the person inside suffered minor injuries. An old chicken house was also destroyed and a mobile home was damaged due to flying debris. There were dozens of trees knocked down. The tornado dissipated about 3.8 miles northeast of Hopewell.

A weak tornado touched down briefly in Faulkner County south of Wooster. The first signs of damage were some tops of trees snapped off just west of Highway 25. The tornado increased in intensity as is moved northeastward damaging a home and business just east of the highway. The roof of a storage building was blown off and several small greenhouses were destroyed. A home further to the northeast was damaged, with the front porch torn off and tossed into the backyard. A covered garage was destroyed as well as a nearby building. Several trees in the area were also blown down. The tornado dissipated about 2.5 miles southeast of Wooster.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS LZK issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:27 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:55 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:19 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 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.

Searcy Municipal Airport (M07) (SRC), 41 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Little Rock radar (KLZK), 59 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:33 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2003 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

80 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 81 of them

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.