Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2003

F0 tornado, Muncie, Indiana, May 1, 2003

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Delaware County on May 1, 2003, touching down at 6:01 PM EST and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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.

  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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
May 1, 2003
Touchdown
6:01 PM EST (23:01 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Delaware County
Touchdown point
40.180, -85.400
Lift-off point
40.180, -85.400
Record number
850

What the Weather Service recorded

Scattered thunderstorms produced wind damage and large hail across Central Indiana. Two tornadoes also touched down very briefly in Randolph and Delaware Counties. Tree damage was reported with these storms.

Weak, Brief Touchdown

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

The warnings

5 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:56 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:33 UTC22:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningIND
22:56 UTC23:15 UTCTornado WarningIND

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 21:15 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.

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z

11.0 hours before the tornado, 160 km from the path. May 1, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 2003-05-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 354 joules per kilogram, CIN -133, lifted condensation level 1165 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 12:00Z on 2003-05-01The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 88 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 24 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
354 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-133 J/kg
Surface CAPE
17 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1165 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
38 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
88 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
101 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z

1.0 hours after it, 160 km from the path. May 2, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2003-05-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 783 joules per kilogram, CIN -5, lifted condensation level 1639 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2003-05-02The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 41 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 26 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
783 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-5 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1345 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1639 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
41 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
103 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
1.2
0-3 km lapse rate
8.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 92 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:01 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 IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 1, 2003

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 112:54 PM MDTF0Kimball, NE0.225
May 15:20 PM EDTF0Montgomery, NY0.110$30,000
May 15:55 PM CDTF1Wagoner, OK2.0120$170,000
May 16:04 PM CDTF1Muskogee, OK1.780$300,000
May 16:14 PM CDTF1Pushmataha, OK0.575$3,000
May 16:20 PM ESTF0Randolph, IN0.110
May 16:46 PM CDTF0Sequoyah, OK1.0100
May 16:51 PM CDTF0Sequoyah, OK0.240
May 17:30 PM CDTF0McCurtain, OK2.050
May 17:33 PM CDTF0LeFlore, OK to AR2.575
May 18:15 PM CDTF2McCurtain, OK13.0300$260,000
May 18:24 PM CDTF2Polk, AR11.0200

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.