F0 tornado, Harbor Beach, Michigan, August 19, 2001

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.

Rating

F0

Date

August 19, 2001

Touchdown

12:00 PM EDT (16:00 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$10,000

County

Huron County

Touchdown point

43.830, -82.650

Lift-off point

43.830, -82.650

Record number

367

An upper level low pressure system moved across the southern Great Lakes region. The cold air aloft with this low created enough instability to trigger scattered thunderstorms, most of which produced hail. A shower over the relatively warm waters of Lake Huron produced a waterspout which moved onshore as a tornado.

A waterspout moved onshore from Harbor Beach harbor. Once the waterspout made landfall, it become classified as a tornado. The tornado moved over the pier and went up a short hill near Water Street, then it dissipated. An elderly couple at an art fair attempted to hold onto belongings and were thrown to the ground with their belongings strewn on top of them. The elderly woman disslocated a shoulder and broke an arm, requireing an overnight hospital stay. One tree was also knocked over and fell onto a van.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:37 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.

NWS Detroit, MI wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Aug 19, 11:25 AM EDT, 35 minutes earlier.

SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DETROIT/PONTIAC MI
1125 AM EDT SUN AUG 19 2001

THE CURRENT WATER VAPOR LOOP NICELY DEPICTS THE CLOSED 500MB LOW
SITUATED OVER SOUTH CENTRAL LOWER MICHIGAN. AT THE SURFACE...THE
LATEST OBS PLOT SHOWS LOW PRESSURE OVER SOUTHWEST LOWER...WITH A
SECONDARY LOW ROUGHLY OVER LANSING. THE RUC SEEMS TO HAVE THE BEST
HANDLE ON THE SURFACE PATTERN. IT SHOWS THE LOW OVER SOUTHWEST LOWER
WEAKENING AS THE SECOND LOW OVER THE LANSING AREA DEEPENS SLIGHTLY
AND MOVES ALMOST DUE EAST THIS AFTERNOON (WHICH LINES UP WELL WITH
MSAS 3 HOUR PRESSURE CHANCE PLOTS). AREA RADARS SHOW MAINLY
SCATTERED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN...WITH
THE MORE WIDESPREAD PRECIP ASSOCIATED WITH DEEPER WRAP AROUND
MOISTURE AND DEFORMATION AXIS ACROSS CENTRAL AND NORTHERN LOWER
MICHIGAN.

THIS AFTERNOON....THE LATEST RUC BRINGS THE UPPER LEVEL LOW
EAST-NORTHEAST INTO THE THUMB AND SOUTHERN LAKE HURON BY 00Z AND IT
BEGINS TO FILL IN THE UPPER LEVEL LOW. THE SURFACE LOW IS PROGGED TO
BE CENTERED OVER THE DETROIT METRO AREA BY 00Z. 850 TO 700MB QVECTOR
CONVERGENCE...1000-500MB RH GREATER THAN 70 PCT ALONG WITH
INCREASING DIURNAL INSTABILITY WITH THE 500MB COLD POOL ALOFT WILL
KEEP PRECIP ACROSS SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN THROUGH THE AFTERNOON. HIGHEST
1000-500MB LAYER MOISTURE IS PROGGED TO REMAIN ACROSS THE NORTHERN
COUNTIES THROUGH THE AFTERNOON...THUS THIS IS WHERE I EXPECT THE
MORE WIDESPREAD COVERAGE TO BE. MUCH OF SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN (SOUTH OF
THE TRI CITIES) HAS BEEN PLACED IN A SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE WEATHER
FOR THIS AFTERNOON AND EARLY THIS EVENING. WITH THE COLD POOL ALOFT
OVER THE SOUTHERN GREAT LAKES THIS AFTERNOON (500MB TEMP OF -16C ON
12Z KDTX SOUNDING). THIS WILL ALLOW 700 TO 500MB LAPSE RATES TO
REMAIN AROUND 6C/KM. MODIFIED 12Z KDTX SOUNDING FOR 74/64 GIVES CAPE
AROUND 1500 J/KG. WITH FREEZING LEVELS PROGGED TO DROP TO AROUND
10K FT...WITH FAIRLY WEAK WIND FIELDS ALOFT...PRIMARY SEVERE WEATHER
THREAT THIS AFTERNOON WILL BE LARGE HAIL AND DAMAGING WIND GUSTS
ASSOCIATED WITH WET MICROBURSTS. ONE BIG LIMITING FACTOR TO SEVERE
CONVECTION WILL BE CLOUD COVER AND PRECIP KEEPING TEMPS DOWN (AND
THUS KEEPING SBCAPES MARGINAL).

.DTX...NONE.

CONSIDINE

In the hours before

MIZ047>049-053>055-060>063-068>070-075-076-082-083-200000-

SEVERE WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR SOUTHEAST LOWER MICHIGAN
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DETROIT/PONTIAC MI
1140 AM EDT SUN AUG 19 2001

...SEVERE WEATHER POTENTIAL STATEMENT FOR SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN...

DISPATCHERS...PLEASE NOTIFY YOUR EMERGENCY MANAGERS IMMEDIATELY.

SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS WILL CONTINUE ACROSS SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN THIS
AFTERNOON AND INTO THE EARLY EVENING HOURS. SOME OF THESE STORMS MAY
BE SEVERE AND SPOTTER ACTIVATION MAY BE NEEDED.

A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OVER SOUTHERN LOWER MICHIGAN WILL GRADUALLY
DRIFT EAST TOWARDS THE DETROIT METRO AREA BY THIS EVENING.
UNSEASONABLY COLD AIR ALOFT WILL PROVIDE ENOUGH INSTABILITY TO
MAINTAIN WIDESPREAD SHOWERS AND SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS THIS
AFTERNOON UNTIL 8 PM THIS EVENING. THE PRIMARY THREAT WITH THESE
THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE HAIL TO ONE INCH...WIND GUSTS TO 60 MPH AND
LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL. THE PRIMARY THREAT LOCATION WILL BE SOUTH OF
A SAGINAW TO BAD AXE LINE. THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO MOVE
NORTH-NORTHWEST AT 15 MPH.

STAY TUNED TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO...OR YOUR FAVORITE MEDIA
OUTLET...FOR THE LATEST WEATHER INFORMATION.  YOU CAN ALSO ACCESS
THE LATEST INFORMATION FROM THE INTERNET.
HTTP://WWW.CRH.NOAA.GOV/DTX/START.HTM (ALL LOWER CASE)

CONSIDINE

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.

Port Hope (P58), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Detroit radar (KDTX), 142 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:58 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 2001 tornado in MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan nowThe forecast where you are

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.