Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2003
F2 tornado, Courtland to Republic, Kansas, June 22, 2003
From Courtland to Republic, this F2 tornado ran 4.0 miles across Republic County on June 22, 2003, touching down at 9:10 PM CDT and reaching 450 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $80,000 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 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado
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
- F2
- Date
- June 22, 2003
- Touchdown
- 9:10 PM CDT (02:10 UTC)
- Path length
- 4.0 miles (6.4 km)
- Path width
- 450 yards (411 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $80,000
- County
- Republic County
- Touchdown point
- 39.950, -97.780
- Lift-off point
- 39.980, -97.720
- Record number
- 1224
What the Weather Service recorded
Thunderstorms developed over Republic county the evening of the 22nd and persisted into the early morning hours of the 23rd. Numerous reports of large hail and damaging winds along with several tornadoes (discussed separately) were the result. The persistance of the thunderstorms in the same location led to flash flooding in Republic County as well as the Republican River to flood and do considerable crop damage.
The third in a series of tornadoes touched down northeast of Courtland and traveled 3 miles and damaged 2 homes before dissipating.
A fourth tornado touched down near Republic and moved northeast for 2 miles and damaged a home before dissipating.
A tornado struck 3 miles northeast of Republic and moved northeast 4 miles and destroyed a house in its path before it dissipated near the Nebraska border.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
15 minutes of warning. NWS TOP issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:55 UTC, 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01:07 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | TOP |
| 01:55 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | TOP |
| 02:22 UTC | 06:15 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | TOP |
| 02:56 UTC | 04:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | TOP |
| 03:57 UTC | 05:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TOP |
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 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:25 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.
Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z
2.2 hours before the tornado, 190 km from the path. June 23, 2003.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2534 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -65 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2369 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1045 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 26 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 100 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 222 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 7.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
Omaha, NE (KOAX), 12:00Z
9.8 hours after it, 190 km from the path. June 23, 2003.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -59896 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2900 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 8 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 76 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 180 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
The radar
The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:08 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 KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 22, 2003
14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 22 | 4:15 PM EDT | F0 | Marion, FL | 1.5 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| June 22 | 6:30 PM CDT | F0 | Thayer, NE | 4.0 | 100 | $200,000 | ||
| June 22 | 6:43 PM CDT | F2 | Thayer, NE | 3.0 | 200 | 1 | 7 | $10 million |
| June 22 | 7:00 PM CDT | F0 | Thayer, NE | 1.0 | 35 | |||
| June 22 | 7:08 PM CDT | F0 | Hamilton, NE | 2.0 | 25 | $30,000 | ||
| June 22 | 7:20 PM CDT | F0 | Thayer, NE | 2.0 | 50 | $100,000 | ||
| June 22 | 7:42 PM CDT | F0 | Hamilton, NE | 0.5 | 20 | |||
| June 22 | 7:50 PM CDT | F1 | Pope, MN | 0.1 | 25 | $10,000 | ||
| June 22 | 8:12 PM CDT | F0 | Republic, KS | 0.5 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| June 22 | 8:20 PM CDT | F0 | Republic, KS | 1.0 | 75 | $20,000 | ||
| June 22 | 8:30 PM CDT | F1 | Republic, KS | 3.0 | 150 | $120,000 | ||
| June 22 | 8:30 PM CDT | F0 | York, NE | 0.2 | 30 | $30,000 | ||
| June 22 | 8:58 PM CDT | F1 | Republic, KS | 2.0 | 150 | $60,000 | ||
| June 22 | 10:17 PM CDT | F0 | Republic, KS | 0.5 | 50 | $10,000 |
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.