F0 tornado, Lafayette to West Lafayette, Indiana, June 11, 2003

1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

   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 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.

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

F0

Date

June 11, 2003

Touchdown

6:47 PM EST (23:47 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Tippecanoe County

Touchdown point

40.380, -86.900

Lift-off point

40.380, -86.900

Record number

1095

2 weak tornadoes briefly touched down in the Lafayette and West Lafayette area. Radar echoes did not reveal a strong thunderstorm or much rotation. It is believed these may have been rare cold air funnels that touched down. Only a few trees were damaged during the event.

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

NWS Indianapolis, IN wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Jun 11, 2:33 PM EST, 4 hours 14 minutes earlier.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE INDIANAPOLIS IN
233 PM EST WED JUN 11 2003

FORECAST FOCUS THIS AFTN IS ON POPS/QPF TONIGHT AND THU THEN CHANCES
FOR RAIN INTO THE WEEKEND.

AT 19Z SFC LOW WAS IN SERN MO WITH UPPER TROF ACROSS MO. SCTD SHRA
WERE ACROSS SRN FORECAST AREA /FA/. TEMPS HAD CLIMBED INTO THE MID
70S THANKS TO SOME BREAKS IN THE CLOUDS.

MODELS IN FAIR AGREEMENT THIS RUN. GFS LOOKS LIKE IT MIGHT BE
HAVING PROBLEMS WITH TOO MUCH QPF AND LOOKS TOO STRONG WITH
SFC/UPPER LOWS. GENERALLY FOLLOWED THE ETA.

DECENT DYNAMICS AS SFC LOW AND UPPER TROF COME INTO THE STATE BY
12Z. THIS ALONG WITH PLENTIFUL MOISTURE MAKE CATEGORICAL POPS LOOK
GOOD FOR TONIGHT. WITH THE HIGHER PRECIP. WATER VALUES HEAVY RAIN
STILL POSSIBLE. WILL CONTINUE FLOOD WATCH IN CURRENT FORM. HEAVY
RAIN POSSIBLE NORTH...BUT MOST OF NRN FA HAS NOT SEEN AS MUCH RAIN
AS THE S...SO DID NOT EXTEND WATCH THERE. WITH RAIN TEMPS SHOULD
GET DOWN TO DEWPOINTS...IN THE MID 60S MOST AREAS...WHICH IS CLOSE
TO GUIDANCE.

SYSTEM EXITS TO THE NE THU MORNING. PRECIP WILL PROBABLY BE ACROSS
PART OF NERN FA AT 12Z SO WILL GO WITH LIKELY POPS IN NERN FA AND
CHC POPS ELSEWHERE. TIME SECTIONS SHOW SOME DECREASE IN MOISTURE FRI
AFTN ESPECIALLY ACROSS SWRN FA. THIS WILL ALLOW TEMPS TO WARM TO
READINGS ABOVE MAV VALUES MOST AREAS. WENT IN BETWEEN MAV AND ETA.

FRONT SAGS SOUTH FRI AND SAT. WILL GO DRY MOST AREAS FRI. MAY NOT BE
MUCH IF ANY PRECIP ON SAT BUT WITH UNCERTAINTY IN MODELS WILL NOT
REMOVE.

.IND...FLOOD WATCH THRU 700 AM FOR AREAS ALONG AND S OF INTERSTATE
70...INZ045>048-051>057-060>065-067>072

CS

INZ021-028>031-035>049-051>057-060>065-067>072-121100-

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE INDIANAPOLIS IN
349 PM EST WED JUN 11 2003

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR CENTRAL INDIANA.

.DAY ONE...TONIGHT

SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS WILL DEVELOP ACROSS CENTRAL INDIANA THIS
EVENING. EARLY THIS EVENING AN ISOLATED SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WITH
DAMAGING WINDS IS POSSIBLE...MAINLY ALONG AND NORTH OF A
CRAWFORDSVILLE TO KOKOMO LINE.

HEAVY RAIN IS ALSO POSSIBLE TONIGHT. SOME AREAS MAY SEE UP TO 2
INCHES OF ADDITIONAL RAIN BY THURSDAY MORNING. THIS MAY CAUSE SOME
FLOODING OF LOW LYING AREAS.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...THURSDAY THROUGH TUESDAY

THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE POSSIBLE THURSDAY THROUGH SUNDAY. AT THIS TIME
NO SEVERE WEATHER IS ANTICIPATED.

.SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...

SPOTTER ACTIVATION MAY BE REQUESTED THIS EVENING. SPOTTERS ARE ALSO
ENCOURAGED TO REPORT ANY FLOODING TONIGHT.

&&

MORE INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED AT THE FOLLOWING URL...

HTTP://WWW.CRH.NOAA.GOV/IND (ALL LOWER CASE)

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.

Lafayette (LAF), 5 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 92 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:45 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 IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

21 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.