F0 tornado, Tribes Hill, New York, May 1, 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 1, 2003

Touchdown

5:20 PM EDT (21:20 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

42.950, -74.300

Lift-off point

42.950, -74.300

Record number

122

A line of thunderstorms, developing ahead of a cold front on the evening of May 1, moved into the the Adirondacks and Mohawk Valley from the western portion of New York. The storms interacted with a strong low level jet and as a result, some of the cells produced severe weather, in the form of strong winds. The most significant wind damage came with a storm that moved across Montgomery County. This storm briefly spawned an F0 tornado near Tribes Hill, with winds estimated between 60 and 70 mph, at 520 PM. An eyewitness indicated that a visible twister took the tops off several pine trees in his yard as it moved east. The twister then turned to the north and damaged a nearby home, taking shingles off the roof and competely destroying the deck awning on the house. The tornado was only about 10 yards wide and the swath was about 50 yards in length. Five minutes later, the same storm produced a microburst in the town of Amsterdam, as another eyewitness reported hearing howling winds which collapsed a small garage. The wind with this downburst was estimated between 60 and 80 mph. Also in Montgomery County, numerous trees and wires were blown down in the towns of Nelliston and Canajoharie. At nearly the same time, this line of storms in Johnstown, Fulton County, was producing wind gusts strong enough to blow the roof off a porch and garage on Rt. 67 near the Johnstown Airport. Scattered wind damage was reported in Herkimer County. A wire was blown down along Rt. 28 in Old Forge and shingles were blown off a home 4 miles south of Mohawk. In the town of Mohawk, a barn was completely destroyed. Over an hour later, a second storm brought more trees and wires down in the towns of West Winfield and Columbia Center. In Hamilton County, trees and wires came down on Rt. 28 at Long Lake Inlet. Finally, in Warren County, a tree was blown onto a car in Chestertown, damaging the vehicle.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 21:15 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 Albany radar (KENX), 45 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:19 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 New YorkEvery tornado in New York since 1950Warnings in force in New York nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.