F0 tornado, Washington, Iowa, June 12, 2002

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 12, 2002

Touchdown

7:13 PM CDT (00:13 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Washington County

Touchdown point

41.300, -91.650

Lift-off point

41.300, -91.650

Record number

748

A nearly stationary front, combined with abundant moisture and a strong upper level storm system to produce scattered strong to severe thunderstorms Wednesday evening. A few reports of hail to near quarter size and wind gusts of around 60 mph were received. Damage was confined mainly to trees and power lines. The thunderstorms also spawned two F0 tornadoes, one east of Washington and the other near Keota. The tornadoes were short lived and produced no damage or injuries. The thunderstorms continued through the late evening and into Thursday morning. During this time the threat shifted from hail, high wind and isolated tornadoes to very heavy rain and flash flooding, as the thunderstorms continuously developed over some of the same areas. Rainfall amounts of up to 3 to 4 inches were reported in portions of Southeast Iowa, an area which just 48 hours earlier received anywhere from 2 to 5 inches of rain. As a result, much of the heavy rain went into runoff resulting in fairly widespread flash flooding.

A brief tornado touched down east of Washington. No injuries or damage was reported.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS DVN issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:08 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:49 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.

Washington (AWG), 3 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2002 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

8 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.