Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2002

F0 tornado, Milan to Caldwell, Kansas, June 12, 2002

From Milan to Caldwell, this F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Sumner County on June 12, 2002, touching down at 7:07 PM CDT and reaching 55 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
June 12, 2002
Touchdown
7:07 PM CDT (00:07 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
55 yards (50 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Sumner County
Touchdown point
37.100, -97.680
Lift-off point
37.100, -97.680
Record number
717

What the Weather Service recorded

The same tornado that began 2 miles southeast of Freeport, this tornado crossed the Harper/Sumner county line at 1736, lifting 3 miles southwest of Milan.

Brief touchdown in open country.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:49 UTC23:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningICT
23:01 UTC00:00 UTCTornado WarningICT
23:56 UTC01:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningICT
01:32 UTC02:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningICT
02:53 UTC09:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningICT

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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. 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 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.

Lamont, OK (KLMN), 00:00Z

0.1 hours before the tornado, 56 km from the path. June 13, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lamont, OK at 00:00Z on 2002-06-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1711 joules per kilogram, CIN -10, lifted condensation level 1397 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 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, Lamont, OK at 00:00Z on 2002-06-13The 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 44 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 52 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 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
1711 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-10 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2105 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1397 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
52 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
12 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
44 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
137 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.9
Supercell composite
6.2
0-3 km lapse rate
7.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lamont, OK (KLMN), 12:00Z

11.9 hours after it, 56 km from the path. June 13, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lamont, OK at 12:00Z on 2002-06-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 34 joules per kilogram, CIN -469, lifted condensation level 1710 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, Lamont, OK at 12:00Z on 2002-06-13The 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 94 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 27 knots.1939Sfc1 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
34 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-469 J/kg
Surface CAPE
19 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1710 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
94 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
205 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
2.1
0-3 km lapse rate
3.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Winfield (WLD), 58 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
22:54 UTC8278140° 11 kt1008.1-RA BR
23:04 UTC82.477160° 10 kt1008.5TS
23:19 UTC7771.6190° 14 kt1008.5-RA
23:27 UTC75.271.6200° 12 kt1008.8VCTS -RA
23:54 UTC7572180° 17 kt1008.8VCTS -RA
00:16 UTC73.469.8 6 kt1008.5
00:54 UTC7367180° 8 kt1011.2-RA
01:35 UTC71.664.4150° 10 kt1010.8VCTS
01:54 UTC736470° 12 kt1012.2

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

The radar

The Vance AFB radar (KVNX), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:06 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 2002 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 12, 2002

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 1212:16 PM CDTF0Benton, IA0.110
June 125:54 PM CDTF0Cowley, KS1.0110
June 126:25 PM CDTF0Keokuk, IA0.110
June 126:35 PM CDTF0Harper, KS3.0110
June 127:00 PM CDTF0Butler, KS4.0110
June 127:13 PM CDTF0Washington, IA0.110
June 127:30 PM CDTF1Ellis, OK1.050$20,000
June 1212:20 AM CDTF0Fulton, IL1.812

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.