Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2002
F3 tornado, La Porte, Texas, March 30, 2002
This F3 tornado ran 0.7 miles across Harris County on March 30, 2002, touching down at 8:09 PM CST and reaching 60 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $350,000 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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
F3158 to 206 mphthis tornado
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- F3
- Date
- March 30, 2002
- Touchdown
- 8:09 PM CST (02:09 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.7 miles (1.1 km)
- Path width
- 60 yards (55 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $350,000
- County
- Harris County
- Touchdown point
- 29.620, -95.020
- Lift-off point
- 29.630, -95.000
- Record number
- 601
What the Weather Service recorded
This Tornado began its path in the Shoreacres subdivision, 3 miles south of La Porte, with a home on Greenleaf Road receiving structural and roof damage (F1), then moved northeast and partially demolished a Super Mart on Broadway (F3), then ripped through an apartment complex across the street causing major roof and window damage and knocking down trees (F2), collapsing a car garage and destroying at least one car. Just northeast of the apartments, a few homes had minor damage with fences and large trees down. On Carlisle Street, in the Bayside Terrace subdivision, a few homes had minor roof damage, yard trees down, and debris from the convenience store, while part of the roof off the Super Mart dropped onto a Truck parked at the north end of Carlisle next to Galveston Bay. No injuries were reported. A survey was conducted.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
22 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:47 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:30 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:54 UTC | 00:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | HGX |
| 00:31 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | HGX |
| 01:23 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | HGX |
| 01:47 UTC | 02:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | HGX |
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 00:42 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.
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z
2.2 hours before the tornado, 183 km from the path. March 31, 2002.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2027 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -16 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2761 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 712 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 97 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 121 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.5
- Supercell composite
- 6.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.4 K/km
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 12:00Z
9.8 hours after it, 183 km from the path. March 31, 2002.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2084 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -1 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1567 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 478 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 26 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 164 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 194 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.3
- Supercell composite
- 5.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.9 K/km
The surface observations
Houston/Ellington (EFD), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:50 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 150° 10 kt | 1005.4 | TS | |
| 02:00 UTC | 73.4 | 71.6 | 250° 19 kt | 32 | 1006.8 | +TSRA BR |
| 02:25 UTC | 66.2 | 66.2 | 200° 7 kt | 1008.1 | -TSRA | |
| 02:50 UTC | 68 | 68 | 190° 14 kt | 18 | 1007.5 | TSRA |
| 03:50 UTC | 66.2 | 66.2 | 150° 9 kt | 1008.1 | TS |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2002 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 30, 2002
22 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 30 | 12:51 PM CST | F0 | Falls, TX | 0.7 | 75 | $1,000 | ||
| March 30 | 1:06 PM CST | F1 | Runnels, TX | 3.0 | 85 | $30,000 | ||
| March 30 | 1:21 PM CST | F2 | Limestone, TX | 7.0 | 440 | $250,000 | ||
| March 30 | 1:45 PM CST | F1 | Runnels, TX | 0.5 | 100 | |||
| March 30 | 1:55 PM CST | F0 | Limestone, TX | 3.5 | 30 | $4,000 | ||
| March 30 | 2:17 PM CST | F0 | Taylor, TX | 0.2 | 20 | |||
| March 30 | 2:17 PM CST | F0 | Taylor, TX | 0.2 | 20 | |||
| March 30 | 2:40 PM CST | F1 | Callahan, TX | 9.0 | 200 | |||
| March 30 | 3:10 PM CST | F0 | Callahan, TX | 0.3 | 30 | |||
| March 30 | 3:52 PM CST | F0 | Hamilton, TX | 1.2 | 40 | $10,000 | ||
| March 30 | 3:59 PM CST | F1 | Eastland, TX | 1.0 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| March 30 | 4:05 PM CST | F0 | Hamilton, TX | 2.5 | 100 | $70,000 | ||
| March 30 | 4:10 PM CST | F0 | Eastland, TX | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| March 30 | 4:20 PM CST | F0 | Erath, TX | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| March 30 | 4:24 PM CST | F0 | Anderson, TX | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| March 30 | 4:42 PM CST | F1 | Cherokee, TX | 33.0 | 150 | |||
| March 30 | 5:30 PM CST | F0 | Wharton, TX | 0.5 | 20 | |||
| March 30 | 5:36 PM CST | F0 | Fort Bend, TX | 0.5 | 30 | $150,000 | ||
| March 30 | 5:40 PM CST | F0 | Wharton, TX | 0.5 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| March 30 | 6:15 PM CST | F0 | Nacogdoches, TX | 3.0 | 50 | |||
| March 30 | 6:50 PM CST | F3 | Angelina, TX | 49.0 | 440 | 6 | $6.2 million | |
| March 30 | 7:15 PM CST | F0 | Fort Bend, TX | 0.5 | 30 | $20,000 |
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.