Tornadoes · United States · Louisiana · 2002

F0 tornado, Woodworth, Louisiana, October 3, 2002

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Rapides Parish on October 3, 2002, touching down at 5:30 PM CDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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 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
October 3, 2002
Touchdown
5:30 PM CDT (22:30 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Rapides Parish
Touchdown point
31.150, -92.500
Lift-off point
31.150, -92.500
Record number
336

What the Weather Service recorded

State Police reported a tornado in a field, causing minor damage to trees.

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
19:32 UTC20:30 UTCTornado WarningLCH
20:11 UTC23:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningLCH
20:27 UTC21:15 UTCTornado WarningLCH

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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:05 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.

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 12:00Z

10.5 hours before the tornado, 133 km from the path. October 3, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 2002-10-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -2500, lifted condensation level 631 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 12:00Z on 2002-10-03The 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 4 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 17 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2500 J/kg
Surface CAPE
7 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
631 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
40 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
4 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
155 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z

1.5 hours after it, 133 km from the path. October 4, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 2002-10-04Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 195 joules per kilogram, CIN -29, lifted condensation level 743 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, Lake Charles Mun, LA at 00:00Z on 2002-10-04The 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 2 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 3 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
195 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-29 J/kg
Surface CAPE
251 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
743 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
3 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
0 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
2 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
6 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2002 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of October 3, 2002

24 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
October 38:40 AM CDTF1Saint Tammany Parish, LA0.330$30,000
October 39:30 AM CDTF1Terrebonne Parish, LA0.330$30,000
October 311:00 AM CDTF0Hancock, MS0.330$10,000
October 311:06 AM CDTF0Lafayette Parish, LA1.020$30,000
October 311:08 AM CDTF1Acadia Parish, LA1.020$500,000
October 311:25 AM CDTF0Acadia Parish, LA1.020$30,000
October 311:28 AM CDTF0Lafayette Parish, LA1.010$1.0 million
October 311:30 AM CDTF0Saint Tammany Parish, LA0.325$30,000
October 311:43 AM CDTF0Acadia Parish, LA1.010$30,000
October 311:55 AM CDTF0Lafayette Parish, LA1.010$10,000
October 311:58 AM CDTF0Acadia Parish, LA1.010$30,000
October 312:00 PM CDTF0Pearl River, MS0.330$10,000
October 312:22 PM CDTF0Evangeline Parish, LA1.010$30,000
October 312:28 PM CDTF0Acadia Parish, LA1.010$10,000
October 31:15 PM CDTF0Evangeline Parish, LA1.010$30,000
October 31:15 PM CDTF0Smith, MS0.550$3,000
October 31:30 PM CDTF0Scott, MS0.550$3,000
October 33:00 PM CDTF0Rapides Parish, LA1.015$10,000
October 33:13 PM CDTF0Smith, MS0.550$3,000
October 33:22 PM CDTF0Scott, MS0.550$1,000
October 33:50 PM CDTF0Harrison, MS0.330$10,000
October 33:59 PM CDTF1Smith, MS1.0150$10,000
October 34:52 PM CDTF1LaSalle Parish, LA2.525
October 35:30 PM CDTF0Stone, MS0.120$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.