F0 tornado, Seabrook to Shoreacres, Texas, December 30, 2002

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

December 30, 2002

Touchdown

9:25 PM CST (03:25 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Harris County

Touchdown point

29.620, -95.020

Lift-off point

29.620, -95.020

Record number

75

Exactly one week after the December 23rd outbreak, Southeast Texas received another round of severe weather as the next storm system moved out of the southwestern U.S. toward Texas. This event only lasted three hours (compared to eighteen hours on the 23rd). This event only had three tornadoes (compared to ten on the 23rd). However, damage from two of these three tornadoes was significant due to the fact that it occurred over heavily populated areas. This event had no injuries, and the total damage cost was just under $450,000.

Tornado near the intersection of FM 2094 and Clear Lake Road.

Tornado briefly touched down before moving to the northeast into Galveston Bay as a waterspout. Several boats at the Houston Yacht Club were overturned and a large section of a metal roof was destroyed.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:21 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:00 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 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:44 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 Houston radar (KHGX), 17 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:25 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 2002 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.