Tornadoes · United States · Ohio · 2003

F0 tornado, Collins, Ohio, July 10, 2003

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Huron County on July 10, 2003, touching down at 11:30 AM EDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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 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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
July 10, 2003
Touchdown
11:30 AM EDT (15:30 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Huron County
Touchdown point
41.270, -82.500
Lift-off point
41.270, -82.500
Record number
537

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak tornado touched down about one mile southeast of Collins in Townsend Township. The tornado was only on the ground for a few hundred yards before lifting. This F0 tornado knocked down a few trees and caused some crop damage. No buildings were damaged. A moving recreational vehicle was pushed off the road but little damage and no injuries occurred.

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.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 11:59 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.

Detroit, MI (KDTX), 12:00Z

3.5 hours before the tornado, 179 km from the path. July 10, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Detroit, MI at 12:00Z on 2003-07-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 133 joules per kilogram, CIN -50, lifted condensation level 620 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Detroit, MI at 12:00Z on 2003-07-10The 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 128 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 29 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
133 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-50 J/kg
Surface CAPE
36 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
620 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
128 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
209 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.5
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Detroit, MI (KDTX), 00:00Z

8.5 hours after it, 179 km from the path. July 11, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Detroit, MI at 00:00Z on 2003-07-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 425 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 938 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Detroit, MI at 00:00Z on 2003-07-11The 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 45 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 31 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
425 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1694 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
938 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
31 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
45 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
75 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
1.1
0-3 km lapse rate
6.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Cleveland radar (KCLE), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:28 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 2003 tornado in OhioEvery tornado in Ohio since 1950Warnings in force in Ohio nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 10, 2003

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 104:29 PM EDTF2Wood, WV2.5250$1.5 million
July 106:51 PM EDTF0Culpeper, VA7.040
July 107:42 PM EDTF0Stafford, VA5.050
July 108:00 PM EDTF1King George, VA4.050
July 107:03 PM ESTF0Grant, IN2.0100
July 108:30 PM EDTF0King George, VA0.140
July 109:24 PM EDTF0Hillsdale, MI0.150$1,000

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.