Tornadoes · United States · Kentucky · 2003

F1 tornado, Briensburg, Kentucky, June 11, 2003

This F1 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Marshall County on June 11, 2003, touching down at 7:20 PM CDT and reaching 80 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $40,000 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.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    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
F1
Date
June 11, 2003
Touchdown
7:20 PM CDT (00:20 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
80 yards (73 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$40,000
County
Marshall County
Touchdown point
36.900, -88.350
Lift-off point
36.900, -88.350
Record number
297

What the Weather Service recorded

A mobile home was pushed two to three feet off its pier foundation, nearly pulling tie downs out of the ground. Part of the wooden deck with an attached metal awning was thrown 200 feet across a roadway. Another part of the deck crashed into a corner of the mobile home and a pickup truck, causing substantial damage to both. A heavy wooden shed with some heavy equipment in it was flipped over. A utility trailer was moved several feet. Deck furniture and the metal roof from a carport were blown away. A dog was injured. Peak winds were estimated near 75 MPH. The damage location was about a half mile south of the intersection of Highway 795 and Foust Sledd Road, which is less than a mile west of the Purchase Parkway.

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.

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. The outlook in force was issued at 20:20 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.

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z

0.3 hours before the tornado, 178 km from the path. June 12, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2003-06-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 18 joules per kilogram, CIN -144, lifted condensation level 958 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, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2003-06-12The 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 126 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 27 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
18 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-144 J/kg
Surface CAPE
94 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
958 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
126 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
123 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 12:00Z

11.7 hours after it, 178 km from the path. June 12, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 2003-06-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 120 joules per kilogram, CIN -77, lifted condensation level 657 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, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 2003-06-12The 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 100 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 21 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
120 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-77 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
657 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
100 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
63 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Murray (CEY), 26 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
22:53 UTC7169170° 9 kt1005.4-RA BR
23:53 UTC7169 6 kt1005.8+RA BR
23:59 UTC71.668200° 8 kt1005.4-RA BR
00:10 UTC71.669.8190° 7 kt1005.4
00:40 UTC69.868180° 8 kt1005.4
00:53 UTC7068200° 7 kt1005.4-RA BR
01:00 UTC69.868210° 7 kt1005.4-RA

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

The radar

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 42 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:04 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 KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 11, 2003

21 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 116:10 PM CDTF0DeWitt, IL0.110
June 116:15 PM CDTF0Haskell, TX0.120
June 116:20 PM CDTF0Sangamon, IL0.110
June 116:22 PM CDTF0Sangamon, IL0.110
June 116:25 PM CDTF0DeWitt, IL0.210
June 116:25 PM CDTF0Logan, IL0.110
June 116:30 PM CDTF0Macon, IL0.110
June 116:38 PM CDTF0Logan, IL0.110
June 116:38 PM CDTF0Logan, IL0.110
June 116:47 PM ESTF0Tippecanoe, IN0.130
June 117:00 PM ESTF0Tippecanoe, IN0.530
June 117:32 PM CDTF0Rock, NE0.110
June 117:40 PM CDTF0Blaine, NE0.110
June 117:42 PM CDTF0Potter, SD0.125
June 117:57 PM CDTF0Rock, NE0.110
June 117:58 PM CDTF0Sully, SD0.425
June 118:00 PM CDTF0Tom Green, TX0.120
June 118:09 PM CDTF0Lyman, SD0.125
June 118:37 PM CDTF0Rock, NE0.210
June 119:13 PM CDTF0Lyman, SD0.550
June 119:30 PM CDTF0Lyman, SD0.125

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.