Tornadoes · United States · Louisiana · 2004

F0 tornado, Kenner, Louisiana, May 12, 2004

This F0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Jefferson Parish on May 12, 2004, touching down at 7:22 PM CDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $2,000 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
May 12, 2004
Touchdown
7:22 PM CDT (00:22 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$2,000
County
Jefferson Parish
Touchdown point
29.980, -90.230
Lift-off point
29.980, -90.230
Record number
142

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak tornado was observed by Louisiana State Police and a National Weather Service employee in the northwest portion of Kenner. Several trees were blown.

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
00:11 UTC01:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLIX
00:26 UTC00:45 UTCTornado WarningLIX
00:46 UTC01:00 UTCTornado WarningLIX
01:08 UTC03:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningLIX
01:34 UTC02:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLIX

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 23:04 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.

Slidell Radar S, LA (KSIL), 00:00Z

0.4 hours before the tornado, 59 km from the path. May 13, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Slidell Radar S, LA at 00:00Z on 2004-05-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 85 joules per kilogram, CIN -101, lifted condensation level 694 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, Slidell Radar S, LA at 00:00Z on 2004-05-13The 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 22 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
85 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-101 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
694 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
4 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
104 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.5
0-3 km lapse rate
4.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Slidell Radar S, LA (KSIL), 12:00Z

11.6 hours after it, 59 km from the path. May 13, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Slidell Radar S, LA at 12:00Z on 2004-05-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 390 joules per kilogram, CIN -174, lifted condensation level 777 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, Slidell Radar S, LA at 12:00Z on 2004-05-13The 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 45 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 15 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
390 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-174 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
777 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
45 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
158 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
3.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2004 tornado in LouisianaEvery tornado in Louisiana since 1950Warnings in force in Louisiana nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 12, 2004

17 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 127:01 PM CDTF0Pratt, KS0.520
May 127:04 PM CDTF0Barber, KS0.340
May 127:08 PM CDTF1Barber, KS2.5120$10,000
May 126:13 PM MDTF0Cheyenne, CO0.550
May 126:38 PM MDTF0Cheyenne, CO0.550
May 127:53 PM CDTF0Harper, KS0.350
May 128:02 PM CDTF2Harper, KS1.8200$140,000
May 128:14 PM CDTF1Harper, KS4.0125
May 128:32 PM CDTF0Harper, KS1.050
May 128:40 PM CDTF4Harper tornado, KS1.25001$280,000
May 127:40 PM MDTF1Cheyenne, CO0.5100
May 129:02 PM CDTF0Harper, KS1.275
May 129:05 PM CDTF1Harper, KS1.575$220,000
May 129:10 PM CDTF2Harper, KS2.0300$140,000
May 129:18 PM CDTF2Harper, KS1.0100$100,000
May 129:45 PM CDTF1Harper, KS3.5100$100,000
May 1210:05 PM CDTF1Sumner, KS2.5150$100,000

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.