Tornadoes · United States · Kentucky · 2003
F3 tornado, Sacremento, Kentucky, May 11, 2003
This F3 tornado ran 1.8 miles across McLean County on May 11, 2003, touching down at 1:18 AM CDT and reaching 80 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 2, and did $400,000 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 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.
F3158 to 206 mphthis tornado
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
- F3
- Date
- May 11, 2003
- Touchdown
- 1:18 AM CDT (06:18 UTC)
- Path length
- 1.8 miles (2.9 km)
- Path width
- 80 yards (73 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 2
- Property damage
- $400,000
- County
- McLean County
- Touchdown point
- 37.420, -87.270
- Lift-off point
- 37.420, -87.230
- Record number
- 120
What the Weather Service recorded
One home was destroyed, and one home was severely damaged. A mobile home disintegrated, with the frame found one quarter mile away. Several barns or sheds were destroyed. Two vehicles were rolled. Numerous trees were uprooted, and some were blown some distance. The damage path began about one quarter mile west of Highway 81 in the south end of Sacramento, then extended eastward. The two injuries were relatively minor. Peak winds were estimated near 170 MPH.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
10 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:08 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:45 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06:00 UTC | 06:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PAH |
| 06:08 UTC | 06:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | PAH |
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 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
6.3 hours before the tornado, 155 km from the path. May 11, 2003.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1200 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -3 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1382 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1378 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 48 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 9 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 71 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 123 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.5
- Supercell composite
- 4.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.2 K/km
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 May 11, 2003
13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 11 | 4:10 AM EDT | F2 | Hardin, KY | 6.5 | 120 | 5 | $1.0 million | |
| May 11 | 3:12 AM CDT | F1 | Davidson, TN | 4.5 | 200 | $500,000 | ||
| May 11 | 3:20 AM CDT | F3 | Williamson, TN | 1.0 | 300 | 1 | $2.2 million | |
| May 11 | 3:20 AM CDT | F1 | Wilson, TN | 3.6 | 200 | $500,000 | ||
| May 11 | 3:30 AM CDT | F1 | Williamson, TN | 0.5 | 200 | |||
| May 11 | 3:40 AM CDT | F1 | Sumner, TN | 5.5 | 200 | |||
| May 11 | 3:50 AM CDT | F3 | Rutherford, TN | 1.0 | 400 | $1.8 million | ||
| May 11 | 3:59 AM CDT | F1 | Hart, KY | 2.0 | 50 | $100,000 | ||
| May 11 | 5:30 AM EDT | F2 | Mercer, KY | 7.0 | 300 | 1 | 8 | $15 million |
| May 11 | 6:55 AM EDT | F1 | Garrard, KY | 1.0 | 75 | $100,000 | ||
| May 11 | 3:30 PM EDT | F1 | Wayne, NY | 2.3 | 50 | $150,000 | ||
| May 11 | 4:10 PM EDT | F0 | Lycoming, PA | 1.3 | 75 | $10,000 | ||
| May 11 | 5:30 PM PDT | F0 | Grant, WA | 0.1 | 0 |
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.