Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2002

F2 tornado, Adamsville, Ohio, May 8, 2002

This F2 tornado ran 3.0 miles across Gallia County on May 8, 2002, touching down at 6:07 PM EDT and reaching 80 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 3, and did $3.5 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.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    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 mphthis tornado

    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.

The record

Rating
F2
Date
May 8, 2002
Touchdown
6:07 PM EDT (22:07 UTC)
Path length
3.0 miles (4.8 km)
Path width
80 yards (73 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
3
Property damage
$3.5 million
County
Gallia County
Touchdown point
38.870, -82.350
Lift-off point
38.880, -82.280
Record number
99

What the Weather Service recorded

A warm frontal boundary interacted with a complex of showers and thunderstorms to form a tornado on the southern flank of the precipitation. Touchdown was along Adamsville Road near Route 35. The roof was ripped off a home, 2 mobile homes were destroyed, along with a pole barn. The tornado then struck both rest areas on Route 35. The rest building on the north side of the highway was severely damaged. At least 2 tractor trailers were flipped over, while others parked in the lot, were damaged. Another mobile home near the rest stop was destroyed. Proceeding just east to Dewey Road, the tornado wiped a modular home off its foundation. A trailer was destroyed at the corner of Kerr and Viney Roads. Down Kerr Road, a home had its roof removed and a mobile home was moved off its foundation. On Fairview Road, another mobile home was damaged. What was amazing and fortunate, in just about all the cases, no one was home when the tornado struck. Three people were injured at the rest stop.

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

The warnings

1 minute of warning. NWS RLX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:06 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:06 UTC22:30 UTCTornado WarningRLX

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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.

Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z

1.9 hours after it, 142 km from the path. May 9, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2002-05-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1260 joules per kilogram, CIN -12, lifted condensation level 1075 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Cncnati-Daytn, OH at 00:00Z on 2002-05-09The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 182 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 35 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
1260 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-12 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2904 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1075 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
182 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
230 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.9
Supercell composite
10.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Huntington/Tri Stat (HTS), 60 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:51 UTC8268220° 7 kt1013.2
21:51 UTC8165220° 9 kt1012.9
22:51 UTC8067210° 6 kt1013.2
23:51 UTC7968210° 3 kt1013.5

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2002 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 8, 2002

20 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 83:07 PM CDTF0McPherson, KS2.0110
May 83:41 PM CDTF0Marion, KS1.0220
May 83:55 PM CDTF0Marion, KS1.0220
May 84:09 PM CDTF0Harper, KS2.0220
May 85:00 PM CDTF0Sumner, KS1.0110
May 85:10 PM CDTF0Chase, KS2.0220
May 86:26 PM CDTF1Jefferson, KS0.2100$10,000
May 86:30 PM CDTF1Jefferson, KS0.2100$50,000
May 86:34 PM CDTF0Jefferson, KS0.150$10,000
May 86:36 PM CDTF1Jefferson, KS0.2100$30,000
May 86:43 PM CDTF0Leavenworth, KS0.140$1,000
May 86:48 PM CDTF0Cowley, KS5.0220
May 86:48 PM CDTF1Leavenworth, KS0.540$10,000
May 86:58 PM CDTF0Chickasaw, IA0.225
May 87:20 PM CDTF0Clinton, MO0.125
May 88:10 PM CDTF0Allamakee, IA0.120$10,000
May 88:15 PM CDTF0Marion, IA0.230
May 88:49 PM CDTF0Grant, OK6.075
May 89:45 PM CDTF0Keokuk, IA0.110$30,000
May 812:32 AM CDTF0Woodford, IL5.550

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.