F1 tornado, Symsonia to Wingo, Kentucky, May 6, 2003

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.

Rating

F1

Date

May 6, 2003

Touchdown

11:32 PM CDT (04:32 UTC)

Path length

22.0 miles (35.4 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Hickman and Graves counties

Touchdown point

36.620, -88.850

Lift-off point

36.530, -88.500

Record number

821

The most prolific tornado-producing storm of the night entered western Kentucky near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and moved east, passing between Paducah and Mayfield. The storm continued to spawn tornadoes, mostly of weak to moderate intensity, until it reached Kentucky Lake. Elsewhere, severe thunderstorms moved northeast across northwest Kentucky, producing sporadic wind damage and a tornado. Sporadic wind damage occurred in Livingston, Crittenden, Webster, and Daviess Counties, with a tornado in Union and Henderson Counties.

Several large trees were uprooted. The tornado was witnessed by a firefighter. The damage was along Highway 348.

The tornado entered Graves County a couple miles north of where the Purchase Parkway crosses the Hickman/Graves County line. A very broken path of damage extended across southern Graves County to near the Calloway County border. A garage attached to a residence was destroyed. Roofs were damaged. An open aluminum equipment shed was heavily damaged. Trees were blown down. Peak winds were estimated near 95 MPH.

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

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:46 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.

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:32 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2003 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

73 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 74 of them

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.