Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2002
F3 tornado, Marble Hill, Missouri, April 27, 2002
This F3 tornado ran 4.0 miles across Bollinger County on April 27, 2002, touching down at 12:40 AM CDT and reaching 200 yards wide. It killed 1 person and injured 16, and did $4.0 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 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 mphthis tornado
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
- F3
- Date
- April 27, 2002
- Touchdown
- 12:40 AM CDT (05:40 UTC)
- Path length
- 4.0 miles (6.4 km)
- Path width
- 200 yards (183 m)
- Deaths
- 1
- Injuries
- 16
- Property damage
- $4.0 million
- County
- Bollinger County
- Touchdown point
- 37.220, -90.070
- Lift-off point
- 37.270, -90.020
- Record number
- 62
What the Weather Service recorded
This strong tornado with peak winds near 180 MPH touched down in a rural area southwest of Marble Hill. A total of 19 residences were severely damaged, and 6 were destroyed. Approximately 10 of the residences were mobile homes and 15 were single-family homes. Another 50 outbuildings, such as barns and sheds, were destroyed or damaged. Seven people were inside a house that was demolished. One of the victims, a 12-year-old boy, was thrown about 50 yards from the house and fatally injured. Several others in the immediate area, possibly the other occupants of the house, were thrown into a nearby lake and swam to safety. Of the 16 people injured in the tornado, four were air lifted to hospitals with serious injuries. Cars were stacked atop cars. Several residents were trapped inside the debris of their homes for up to 3 hours. The large number of trees down across roads delayed the arrival of rescue teams.
The deaths
1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.
| Age | Sex | Where | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | M | Permanent Home | Direct |
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05:35 UTC | 06:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | PAH |
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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:53 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.
Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 00:00Z
5.7 hours before the tornado, 269 km from the path. April 28, 2002.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1817 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -7 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2356 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 653 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 65 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 41 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 480 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 529 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 6.4
- Supercell composite
- 25.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.7 K/km
Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 12:00Z
6.3 hours after it, 269 km from the path. April 28, 2002.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1368 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -131 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2310 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 843 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 336 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 361 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.0
- Supercell composite
- 8.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.8 K/km
The surface observations
Cape Girardeau (CGI), 42 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 03:53 UTC | 72 | 68 | 210° 14 kt | 20 | 1006.1 | |
| 04:53 UTC | 73 | 68 | 210° 16 kt | 21 | 1005.4 | |
| 05:37 UTC | 73.4 | 68 | 210° 15 kt | 23 | 1005.4 | VCTS |
| 05:53 UTC | 73 | 68 | 200° 16 kt | 25 | 1004.4 | VCTS |
| 06:39 UTC | 73.4 | 68 | 220° 23 kt | 28 | 1005.8 | -RA |
| 06:53 UTC | 73 | 68 | 230° 18 kt | 25 | 1005.8 | TS |
| 07:30 UTC | 71.6 | 64.4 | 220° 15 kt | 23 | 1005.4 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Paducah radar (KPAH), 115 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:39 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 MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 27, 2002
9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 27 | 3:06 PM CDT | F1 | Saline, NE | 4.5 | 40 | |||
| April 27 | 3:25 PM CDT | F0 | Seward, NE | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| April 27 | 4:10 PM CDT | F0 | Atchison, KS | 0.5 | 25 | $30,000 | ||
| April 27 | 4:41 PM CDT | F0 | Fremont, IA | 0.0 | 20 | |||
| April 27 | 4:50 PM CDT | F0 | Fremont, IA | 0.0 | 20 | |||
| April 27 | 4:58 PM CDT | F0 | Mills, IA | 0.0 | 20 | |||
| April 27 | 10:35 PM CDT | F1 | Saint Clair, IL | 1.7 | 100 | |||
| April 27 | 10:40 PM CDT | F2 | Howell, MO | 1.5 | 100 | $1.5 million | ||
| April 27 | 12:05 AM CDT | F1 | Clay, IL | 5.0 | 200 | 5 |
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.