F0 tornado, North Fork to Monroe City, Missouri, May 10, 2003

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

May 10, 2003

Touchdown

6:19 PM CDT (23:19 UTC)

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Monroe County

Touchdown point

39.620, -91.930

Lift-off point

39.620, -91.930

Record number

210

A supercell that eventually spawned 3 tornadoes created its first in Monroe County along Highway FF near the small community of North Folk (10 miles southwest of Monroe City). Several large trees were either uprooted or snapped off at the base of the trunk. Nearby machine sheds and homes sustained little if any damage. The total damage path of this tornado was one quarter mile in length and 40 yards wide. Tornado damage was rated F0 over this area.

The Monroe County supercell spawned its second tornado near the southwest city limits of Monroe City at approximately 6:30 pm CDT. The tornado moved northeast across the northern part of town. Twenty-five homes sustained varying degrees of roof damage due to downed trees and large tree limbs broken by the tornado. The width of the damage area was 50 yards and damage intensity was rated F0 over this area.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:13 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:00 UTC.

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 High Risk, with a 0.25 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 12:05 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 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.

Quincy (UIN), 72 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The St Louis radar (KLSX), 149 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:19 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 2003 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

50 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.