Tornadoes · United States · Mississippi · 2002

F0 tornado, Biloxi, Mississippi, October 3, 2002

Name: F0 tornado, Biloxi, Mississippi, October 3, 2002
Start: 2002-10-03T20:50:00.000Z
Location: Biloxi, Mississippi

This F0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Harrison County on October 3, 2002, touching down at 3:50 PM CDT and reaching 30 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.

F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
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 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.
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: F0
Date: October 3, 2002
Touchdown: 3:50 PM CDT (20:50 UTC)
Path length: 0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width: 30 yards (27 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
Property damage: $10,000
County: Harrison County
Touchdown point: 30.550, -88.900
Lift-off point: 30.550, -88.900
Record number: 891

What the Weather Service recorded

Hurricane Lili, a major hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico, during the daylight hours of October 2, 2002 moved steadily northwest around 15 mph toward the Louisiana coast during the evening hour. The hurricane weakened rapidly to a Saffir Simpson Scale Category 1 Hurricane by the time it made landfall during the morning of October 3rd along the south central Louisiana coast. The hurricane moved north northwest across south central Louisiana before turning northeast across the northern portion of the Louisiana. While Hurricane Lili made landfall in south central Louisiana, tropical storm force wind gusts affected nearly all of south Mississippi during October 3rd as rainbands moved across the southern portion of the state. Storm surge flooding affected the coastal areas with tides generally 3 to 5 feet above normal along the coastal areas causing some flooding in low lying coastal areas, but storm surge flooding was less severe and damaging than during Tropical Storm Isidore a week earlier. The highest recorded wind gusts on October 3rd was 43 mph at 1441 CST at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi. Over inland portions of southwest Missisippi some trees were knocked down by strong wind gusts. Several weak, short lived tornadoes touched down, however property damage was generally minor.

Law enforcement reported a weak tornado touched down. No damage was reported.

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 New Orleans, LA wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Oct 3, 2:35 PM CDT, 1 hour 15 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Oct 3, 2:35 PM CDT, 1 hour 15 minutes before

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Hazardous weather outlook, Oct 3, 11:30 AM CDT, 4 hours 20 minutes before

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In the hours before

Local storm report, Oct 3, 11:04 AM CDT, 4 hours 46 minutes before

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Local storm report, Oct 3, 11:46 AM CDT, 4 hours 4 minutes before

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Local storm report, Oct 3, 12:26 PM CDT, 3 hours 24 minutes before

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Local storm report, Oct 3, 1:06 PM CDT, 2 hours 44 minutes before

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Special weather statement, Oct 3, 3:20 PM CDT, 30 minutes before

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The surface observations

Keesler Afb/Biloxi (BIX), 16 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 Mobile radar (KMOB), 65 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:47 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 2002 tornado in Mississippi Every tornado in Mississippi since 1950 Warnings in force in Mississippi now The forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of October 3, 2002

24 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Damage
October 3	8:40 AM CDT	F1	Saint Tammany Parish, LA	0.3	30	$30,000
October 3	9:30 AM CDT	F1	Terrebonne Parish, LA	0.3	30	$30,000
October 3	11:00 AM CDT	F0	Hancock, MS	0.3	30	$10,000
October 3	11:06 AM CDT	F0	Lafayette Parish, LA	1.0	20	$30,000
October 3	11:08 AM CDT	F1	Acadia Parish, LA	1.0	20	$500,000
October 3	11:25 AM CDT	F0	Acadia Parish, LA	1.0	20	$30,000
October 3	11:28 AM CDT	F0	Lafayette Parish, LA	1.0	10	$1.0 million
October 3	11:30 AM CDT	F0	Saint Tammany Parish, LA	0.3	25	$30,000
October 3	11:43 AM CDT	F0	Acadia Parish, LA	1.0	10	$30,000
October 3	11:55 AM CDT	F0	Lafayette Parish, LA	1.0	10	$10,000
October 3	11:58 AM CDT	F0	Acadia Parish, LA	1.0	10	$30,000
October 3	12:00 PM CDT	F0	Pearl River, MS	0.3	30	$10,000
October 3	12:22 PM CDT	F0	Evangeline Parish, LA	1.0	10	$30,000
October 3	12:28 PM CDT	F0	Acadia Parish, LA	1.0	10	$10,000
October 3	1:15 PM CDT	F0	Evangeline Parish, LA	1.0	10	$30,000
October 3	1:15 PM CDT	F0	Smith, MS	0.5	50	$3,000
October 3	1:30 PM CDT	F0	Scott, MS	0.5	50	$3,000
October 3	3:00 PM CDT	F0	Rapides Parish, LA	1.0	15	$10,000
October 3	3:13 PM CDT	F0	Smith, MS	0.5	50	$3,000
October 3	3:22 PM CDT	F0	Scott, MS	0.5	50	$1,000
October 3	3:59 PM CDT	F1	Smith, MS	1.0	150	$10,000
October 3	4:52 PM CDT	F1	LaSalle Parish, LA	2.5	25
October 3	5:30 PM CDT	F0	Stone, MS	0.1	20	$10,000
October 3	5:30 PM CDT	F0	Rapides Parish, LA	1.0	10	$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.