Tornadoes · United States · Michigan · 2002

F0 tornado, New Haven Macomb Arp, Michigan, July 28, 2002

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Macomb County on July 28, 2002, touching down at 2:02 PM EDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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
July 28, 2002
Touchdown
2:02 PM EDT (18:02 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Macomb County
Touchdown point
42.730, -82.920
Lift-off point
42.730, -82.920
Record number
195

What the Weather Service recorded

Scattered thunderstorms occurred very early in the morning on the 28th around Saginaw Bay. These storms laid out an outflow boundary. This boundary focused the development of additional thunderstorms later in the morning. High temperatures and humidity provided enough instability for some of these storms to become severe. The strongest storms developed near the border of Oakland and Lapeer counties. These storms evolved into a supercell as they moved into Macomb county. This supercell caused considerable wind damage and even spawned a short-lived tornado.

Trained spotters reported a brief tornado touchdown 2 miles west of New Haven. A National Weather Service storm survey confirmed tree damage consistent with an F0 tornado.

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

The warnings

9 minutes of warning. NWS DTX issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:53 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:30 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
17:20 UTC18:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningDTX
17:53 UTC18:30 UTCTornado WarningDTX

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 15:48 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.

Detroit, MI (KDTX), 12:00Z

6.0 hours before the tornado, 42 km from the path. July 28, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Detroit, MI at 12:00Z on 2002-07-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1933 joules per kilogram, CIN -79, lifted condensation level 854 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, Detroit, MI at 12:00Z on 2002-07-28The 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 218 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 47 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
1933 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-79 J/kg
Surface CAPE
340 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
854 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
47 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
32 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
218 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
210 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
7.1
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Detroit, MI (KDTX), 00:00Z

6.0 hours after it, 42 km from the path. July 29, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Detroit, MI at 00:00Z on 2002-07-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 3239 joules per kilogram, CIN -1, lifted condensation level 602 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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, Detroit, MI at 00:00Z on 2002-07-29The 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 43 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 34 knots.193958Sfc1 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
3239 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-1 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3563 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
602 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
43 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
96 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.0
Supercell composite
5.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Selfridge Angb (MTC), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
16:55 UTC8675.2210° 11 kt1009.1
17:55 UTC8675.2210° 19 kt1007.8
18:55 UTC8675.2230° 11 kt1008.8
19:55 UTC87.875.2240° 8 kt1009.1HZ

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

The radar

The Detroit radar (KDTX), 45 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:59 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.

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of July 28, 2002

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 2812:30 PM EDTF1Warren, PA3.0100$40,000
July 281:41 PM CDTF0Kingsbury, SD0.350
July 281:55 PM CDTF0Kingsbury, SD0.1100$10,000
July 282:07 PM CDTF0Brookings, SD1.050
July 286:40 PM EDTF1Onondaga, NY0.150$2.0 million
July 285:40 PM CDTF0Nicollet, MN0.550

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.