Tornadoes · United States · Tennessee · 2003

F1 tornado, Gallatin, Tennessee, May 11, 2003

This F1 tornado ran 5.5 miles across Sumner County on May 11, 2003, touching down at 3:40 AM CDT and reaching 200 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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 mphthis tornado

    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
F1
Date
May 11, 2003
Touchdown
3:40 AM CDT (08:40 UTC)
Path length
5.5 miles (8.8 km)
Path width
200 yards (183 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Sumner County
Touchdown point
36.370, -86.500
Lift-off point
36.370, -86.420
Record number
936

What the Weather Service recorded

Many trees were blown down along with considerable roof damage to homes. 147 houses and 18 mobile homes were damaged along with 2 businesses. A 36-foot RV parked behind a duplex on Connie Drive was turned upside down. Other areas that were hit hard were on Nicholas Lane, Lock 4 Road, Woodvale Subdivision, Drivers Lane and Peach Valley Road.

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 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.

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z

8.7 hours before the tornado, 29 km from the path. May 11, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2003-05-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1200 joules per kilogram, CIN -3, lifted condensation level 1378 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2003-05-11The 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 71 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 48 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
1200 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-3 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1382 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1378 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
48 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
71 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
123 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
4.2
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Nashville Metro (BNA), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
06:53 UTC7970200° 10 kt191006.4
07:53 UTC7870200° 9 kt1006.4
08:20 UTC73.469.8300° 20 kt311007.5RA
08:22 UTC69.866.2290° 12 kt311008.1+RA BR
08:24 UTC6866.2300° 10 kt311007.8+RA BR
08:26 UTC66.266.2290° 13 kt311008.1+TSRA BR
08:38 UTC66.264.4170° 5 kt161006.4+TSRA FG
08:53 UTC6766230° 3 kt1006.8-TSRA BR
09:09 UTC66.266.2310° 6 kt1007.5-TSRA BR
09:53 UTC6866240° 8 kt1008.8-RA

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

The radar

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 16 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:42 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 TennesseeEvery tornado in Tennessee since 1950Warnings in force in Tennessee nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 11, 2003

13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 111:18 AM CDTF3McLean, KY1.8802$400,000
May 114:10 AM EDTF2Hardin, KY6.51205$1.0 million
May 113:12 AM CDTF1Davidson, TN4.5200$500,000
May 113:20 AM CDTF3Williamson, TN1.03001$2.2 million
May 113:20 AM CDTF1Wilson, TN3.6200$500,000
May 113:30 AM CDTF1Williamson, TN0.5200
May 113:50 AM CDTF3Rutherford, TN1.0400$1.8 million
May 113:59 AM CDTF1Hart, KY2.050$100,000
May 115:30 AM EDTF2Mercer, KY7.030018$15 million
May 116:55 AM EDTF1Garrard, KY1.075$100,000
May 113:30 PM EDTF1Wayne, NY2.350$150,000
May 114:10 PM EDTF0Lycoming, PA1.375$10,000
May 115:30 PM PDTF0Grant, WA0.10

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.