Tornadoes · United States · Minnesota · 2003

F2 tornado, Rapidan to St Clair, Minnesota, July 14, 2003

Name: F2 tornado, Rapidan to St Clair, Minnesota, July 14, 2003
Start: 2003-07-15T01:43:00.000Z
Location: Rapidan to St Clair, Minnesota

From Rapidan to St Clair, this F2 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Blue Earth County on July 14, 2003, touching down at 8:43 PM CDT and reaching 220 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $2.0 million 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.

F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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: F2
Date: July 14, 2003
Touchdown: 8:43 PM CDT (01:43 UTC)
Path length: 1.5 miles (2.4 km)
Path width: 220 yards (201 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
Property damage: $2.0 million
County: Blue Earth County
Touchdown point: 44.120, -93.800
Lift-off point: 44.130, -93.780
Record number: 368

What the Weather Service recorded

The third tornado in a series touched down in a corn field and trekked straight east. It caused minor house damage and knocked down several sheds and outbuildings, then moved across corn and bean fields before causing minor damage to a farmstead. It dissipated shortly after moving through the farmstead. Videotaped by storm chasers.

The fourth tornado in a series formed atop a bluff on the west side of the Le Sueur River valley, struck two homes down in the river valley, then moved back up the bluffs on the east side of the valley, where it snapped many trees and produced minor damage to some more houses, sheds and outbuildings. Videotaped by storm chasers.

The fifth tornado in a series touched down in a corn field, clipped a couple of storage buildings and a lawn care center, then moved across more fields and a meadow before dissipating.

The sixth tornado in a series was the last of five to hit Blue Earth County. This one took direct aim on four farmsteads. Barns, sheds and outbuildings were downed. A roof was taken off a house and numerous trees were snapped. Law Enforcement video showed this to be a multiple vortex tornado.

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

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Twin Cities, MN wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Jul 14, 2:34 PM CDT, 6 hours 9 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Jul 14, 2:34 PM CDT, 6 hours 9 minutes before

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Hazardous weather outlook, Jul 14, 5:10 AM CDT, 15 hours 33 minutes before

MNZ041>045-047>070-073>078-082>085-091>093-WIZ014>016-023>028-151100-

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN
510 AM CDT MON JUL 14 2003

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR PORTIONS OF CENTRAL AND
SOUTHERN MINNESOTA...AND WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN.

.DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT

THERE IS A MODERATE RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS OVER MUCH OF
SOUTHERN MINNESOTA TODAY INTO THIS EVENING.  THE MODERATE RISK AREA
IS LOCATED SOUTH OF A LINE FROM NEW ULM...TO THE TWIN CITIES AND
NEAR EAU CLAIRE WISCONSIN.  SURROUNDING THE MODERATE RISK IS A
SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS OVER THE REMAINDER OF CENTRAL
MINNESOTA AND WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN.  A COLD FRONT AND LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM
IS EXPECTED TO MOVE INTO WESTERN MINNESOTA THIS AFTERNOON AND INTO
WESTERN WISCONSIN TONIGHT.  STRONG TO SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ARE
EXPECTED TO DEVELOP ALONG THE FRONT AS IT SWEEPS EAST TODAY AND THIS
EVENING.  THE MAIN THREAT OF FROM THE STORMS WILL BE LARGE HAIL AND
DAMAGING WINDS...BUT A TORNADO OR TWO CAN NOT BE RULED
OUT...ESPECIALLY OVER SOUTH CENTRAL MINNESOTA THIS AFTERNOON.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...TUESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY

NO HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS EXPECTED AT THIS TIME.

.SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...

SKYWARN SPOTTER ACTIVATION MAY BE NEEDED DURING THE DAY AND THIS
EVENING ACROSS CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN MINNESOTA INTO WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN.

In the hours before

Local storm report, Jul 14, 8:23 PM CDT, 20 minutes before

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Local storm report, Jul 14, 8:29 PM CDT, 14 minutes before

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Special weather statement, Jul 14, 8:30 PM CDT, 13 minutes before

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Local storm report, Jul 14, 8:35 PM CDT, 8 minutes before

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Local storm report, Jul 14, 8:37 PM CDT, 6 minutes before

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Local storm report, Jul 14, 8:43 PM CDT, 0 minutes before

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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.

Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 00:00Z

1.7 hours before the tornado, 82 km from the path. July 15, 2003.

Skew-T log-p

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.

Hodograph

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: 438 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -20 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 611 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 837 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 60 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 31 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 357 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 466 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 1.1
Supercell composite: 5.1
0-3 km lapse rate: 5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Mankato (MKT), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)	Temp (°F)	Dew point (°F)	Wind	Gust (kt)	Pressure (mb)	Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:43 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 track Every 2003 tornado in Minnesota Every tornado in Minnesota since 1950 Warnings in force in Minnesota now The forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 14, 2003

16 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Damage
July 14	9:11 AM EDT	F0	Somerset, MD	1.0	50
July 14	3:10 PM CDT	F1	Pembina, ND	5.5	50
July 14	3:30 PM CDT	F0	Pembina, ND to MN	3.9	25
July 14	4:23 PM CDT	F0	Cavalier, ND	0.5	25
July 14	6:05 PM CDT	F0	Cottonwood, MN	0.1	50
July 14	7:26 PM CDT	F0	Saint Louis, MN	5.0	50
July 14	7:30 PM CDT	F0	Washington, MN	0.1	25
July 14	7:30 PM CDT	F0	Brown, MN	2.0	50
July 14	7:52 PM CDT	F0	Brown, MN	0.1	25
July 14	8:20 PM CDT	F2	Blue Earth, MN	0.5	50	$100,000
July 14	8:22 PM CDT	F1	Blue Earth, MN	2.5	50
July 14	8:27 PM CDT	F1	Blue Earth, MN	3.0	220	$500,000
July 14	8:34 PM CDT	F1	Blue Earth, MN	2.0	100	$100,000
July 14	8:55 PM CDT	F0	Waseca, MN	0.1	50
July 14	9:08 PM CDT	F0	Emmet, IA	0.1	25
July 14	9:15 PM CDT	F0	Hancock, IA	0.2	30

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.