Tornadoes · United States · Georgia · 2003
F1 tornado, Cairo to Pelham, Georgia, February 16, 2003
From Cairo to Pelham, this F1 tornado ran 2.4 miles across Grady and Mitchell counties on February 16, 2003, touching down at 8:25 AM EST and reaching 150 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $430,000 of property damage.
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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- F1
- Date
- February 16, 2003
- Touchdown
- 8:25 AM EST (13:25 UTC)
- Path length
- 2.4 miles (3.9 km)
- Path width
- 150 yards (137 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $430,000
- Counties
- Grady and Mitchell counties
- Touchdown point
- 31.030, -84.200
- Lift-off point
- 31.120, -84.220
- Record number
- 16
What the Weather Service recorded
A tornado briefly touched down on Ridge Road, just south of the Grady-Mitchell county line. It damaged two homes, and knocked down trees and power lines. The tornado moved northeast into southern Mitchell County. Reported by the Grady County EMA.
The tornado which initially touched down just south of the Grady-Mitchell county line, continued northeast, and lifted just north of County Road 262. The worst damage occurred from Wade Road to County Road 262. It destroyed three mobile homes and severely damaged three frame homes. Several mobile homes and a few frame homes sustained minor damage. The tornado toppled numerous trees and some power lines. Reported by the Mitchell County EMA.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
16 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 13:09 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 13:45 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13:09 UTC | 13:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | TAE |
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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:46 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.
Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 00:00Z
10.6 hours after it, 76 km from the path. February 17, 2003.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 24 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -29 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 349 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 660 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 74 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 146 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 91 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.7 K/km
The radar
The Tallahassee radar (KTLH), 76 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:25 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2003 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of February 16, 2003
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 16 | 4:00 AM CST | F1 | Bay, FL | 0.2 | 200 | $250,000 | ||
| February 16 | 4:30 AM CST | F0 | Washington, FL | 0.2 | 75 | $100,000 | ||
| February 16 | 5:37 AM CST | F0 | Gulf, FL | 0.2 | 75 | $250,000 |
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.