Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2003
F0 tornado, Wheeler County, Texas, April 15, 2003
This F0 tornado ran 5.0 miles across Wheeler County on April 15, 2003, touching down at 5:05 PM 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.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
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 mph
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
- F0
- Date
- April 15, 2003
- Touchdown
- 5:05 PM CDT (22:05 UTC)
- Path length
- 5.0 miles (8.0 km)
- Path width
- 200 yards (183 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Wheeler County
- Touchdown point
- 35.450, -100.420
- Lift-off point
- 35.450, -100.320
- Record number
- 111
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:09 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | AMA |
| 22:23 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | AMA |
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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:52 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.
Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 12:00Z
10.1 hours before the tornado, 123 km from the path. April 15, 2003.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -79711 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2381 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 58 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 71 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.5 K/km
Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 00:00Z
1.9 hours after it, 123 km from the path. April 16, 2003.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -92405 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 87 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1788 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 73 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -314 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -45 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.9 K/km
The radar
The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 124 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:05 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 TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 15, 2003
11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 15 | 6:00 PM CDT | F1 | Roger Mills, OK | 10.0 | 440 | $50,000 | ||
| April 15 | 6:41 PM CDT | F0 | Roger Mills, OK | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| April 15 | 6:48 PM CDT | F1 | Roger Mills, OK | 0.1 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| April 15 | 6:55 PM CDT | F1 | Beckham, OK | 1.5 | 200 | 1 | $1.0 million | |
| April 15 | 7:00 PM CDT | F0 | Childress, TX | 0.5 | 40 | |||
| April 15 | 7:20 PM CDT | F1 | Childress, TX | 0.5 | 50 | $150,000 | ||
| April 15 | 7:23 PM CDT | F2 | Harmon, TX to OK | 9.0 | 350 | $100,000 | ||
| April 15 | 7:53 PM CDT | F1 | Jackson, OK | 4.0 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| April 15 | 8:52 PM CDT | F1 | Knox, TX | 2.0 | 100 | $10,000 | ||
| April 15 | 11:41 PM CDT | F1 | Oklahoma, OK | 3.2 | 70 | $120,000 | ||
| April 15 | 11:56 PM CDT | F1 | Lincoln, OK | 4.0 | 100 | $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.