Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2003
F0 tornado, Moran, Texas, April 23, 2003
This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Shackelford County on April 23, 2003, touching down at 3:57 PM CDT and reaching 20 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 23, 2003
- Touchdown
- 3:57 PM CDT (20:57 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Shackelford County
- Touchdown point
- 32.550, -99.220
- Lift-off point
- 32.550, -99.220
- Record number
- 108
What the Weather Service recorded
A line of severe thunderstorms developed in the afternoon that stretched north to south across west central Texas. These thunderstorms produced large hail in numerous locations and one tornado was reported by a television chase crew near Moran.
Reported by KTAB TV chase team.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
What forecasters said that day
The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS San Angelo, TX wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Apr 23, 2:35 PM CDT, 1 hour 22 minutes earlier.
Area forecast discussion, Apr 23, 2:35 PM CDT, 1 hour 22 minutes before
WEST CENTRAL TEXAS FORECAST DISCUSSION NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN ANGELO TX 235 PM CDT WED APR 23 2003 BUSY AFTERNOON SO NOT MUCH DISCUSSION SEVERE WEATHER WILL MOVE OUT...LEAVING CLEAR SKIES AND SEASONAL TEMPS. FIRST PERIOD WILL CONTEND WITH SOME LEFT OVER PRECIP. PRELIM CCF... ABI 053/083/050/081 -000 SJT 053/084/052/084 0000 JCT 052/083/050/084 1000 .SJT...NONE. 25
Hazardous weather outlook, Apr 23, 5:44 AM CDT, 10 hours 13 minutes before
TXZ049-054-064>066-071>073-076>078-098-099-113-114-127-128-139-140- 154-155-168>170-241045- HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN ANGELO TX 544 AM CDT WED APR 23 2003 THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR WEST CENTRAL TEXAS. .DAY ONE... THERE IS A MODERATE RISK FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS THE EASTERN PORTION OF THE BIG COUNTRY AND ALL OF THE HEARTLAND COUNTIES TODAY. THIS MODERATE RISK AREA IS NORTH AND EAST OF A LINE FROM ASPERMONT TO JUST WEST OF ABILENE AND BALLINGER TO BRADY AND SAN SABA. ELSEWHERE THERE IS A SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS TO THE EAST OF A LINE FROM ROTAN TO ROBERT LEE...SAN ANGELO...ELDORADO AND SONORA. THE DRYLINE WILL MOVE THROUGH THE AREA TODAY. THIS IN COMBINATION WITH A STRONG UPPER LEVEL STORM SYSTEM WILL CAUSE SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS...SOME OF WHICH MAY BE SEVERE...ESPECIALLY IN THE MODERATE RISK AREA. THE MAIN THREAT WILL BE VERY LARGE HAIL AND DAMAGING WINDS. THERE WILL BE SUFFICIENT SHEAR FOR THUNDERSTORMS TO PRODUCE TORNADOES...ESPECIALLY OVER THE MODERATE RISK AREA. INTERESTED PERSONS WILL WANT TO PAY ATTENTION TO LATER FORECAST CONCERNING THIS THUNDERSTORM EVENT. .DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN... NO HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS EXPECTED AT THIS TIME. .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT... SPOTTER ACTIVATION MAY BE REQUIRED LATE THIS MORNING INTO THE AFTERNOON. 27/BRAZZELL
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.
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 12:00Z
9.0 hours before the tornado, 183 km from the path. April 23, 2003.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 245 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -295 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 486 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 32 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 71 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 105 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.3 K/km
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 00:00Z
3.0 hours after it, 183 km from the path. April 24, 2003.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1767 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -89 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1874 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 673 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 55 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 382 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 447 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 3.4
- Supercell composite
- 8.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
The surface observations
Abilene (ABI), 46 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
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 23, 2003
8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 23 | 12:16 PM CDT | F1 | Donley, TX | 0.1 | 25 | $150,000 | ||
| April 23 | 12:16 PM CDT | F0 | Briscoe, TX | 0.1 | 40 | |||
| April 23 | 12:22 PM CDT | F0 | Hall, TX | 0.2 | 40 | |||
| April 23 | 12:44 PM CDT | F0 | King, TX | 1.0 | 50 | |||
| April 23 | 2:15 PM CDT | F0 | Hardeman, TX | 1.5 | 50 | |||
| April 23 | 2:24 PM CDT | F0 | Knox, TX | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| April 23 | 4:13 PM CDT | F0 | Kiowa, KS | 1.0 | 100 | |||
| April 23 | 5:16 PM CDT | F0 | Cotton, OK | 2.0 | 70 |
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.