F0 tornado, Arcadia, Nebraska, June 9, 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

June 9, 2003

Touchdown

8:22 PM CDT (01:22 UTC)

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Valley County

Touchdown point

41.430, -99.150

Lift-off point

41.430, -99.150

Record number

1243

Thunderstorms ripped south-central Nebraska with tornadoes, damaging winds and hail. A rain-wrapped tornado was sighted in western Valley county shortly after 7:30 pm by several storm chasers. The tornado blasted 2 farmsteads, one of which was abandoned. A total of 14 outbuildings were damaged or destroyed. The tornado was in the far western part of Valley county along the Comstock road. Another brief tornado was reported near Arcadia a short time later but no damage was confirmed.Elsewhere, vicious high winds over 70 mph did extensive damage north of Shelby in eastern Polk county. Several farmsteads sustained house, outbuilding, grain bin and tree damage. In one case, a garage was nearly ripped from the house it was attached to. Twenty four center pivot irrigation systems were severely damaged or destroyed. A semi-tractor trailer was overturned as the high winds approached. The driver was unhurt but a passenger sustained minor injuries and was treated at a nearby hospital. At one point, 4,500 customers were without power in the area. The high winds also pounded the Palmer area about an hour earlier that night. On a farm north of Palmer, a roof was torn from a metal building, a garage destroyed and a large goose neck trailer tossed several feet by the wind. The damage was strewn across a nearby corn field.Finally, hail caused crop and property damage in parts of the area. The St. Libory area sustained the worst damage with hail stones the size of baseballs and larger were reported. Siding and windows were heavily damaged on many homes, especially just north of town. Crop damage was fairly extensive along a narrow path in the same area.

A tornado moved across western Valley county and was reported by an off duty meteorologist from the SPC.

A brief tornado was reported just west of Arcadia. No damage was reported.

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

24 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:58 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:39 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.

The North Platte radar (KLNX), 132 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:22 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 NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

20 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.