F0 tornado, Loraine, Texas, October 6, 2003

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

October 6, 2003

Touchdown

1:17 AM CDT (06:17 UTC)

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Mitchell County

Touchdown point

32.400, -100.680

Lift-off point

32.370, -100.670

Record number

657

An active round of severe weather affected the Permian Basin during the evening of the 5th and the early morning hours of the 6th. An upper level disturbance interacted with a cold front to ignite thunderstorms that resulted in all modes of severe weather. Storms initially formed across the northwest parts of the Basin, with one of the first storms to show supercellular characteristics resulting in damaging hail between Kermit and Notrees. A supercell storm also developed in western Martin County, and propagated south into Midland County. This storm resulted in large hail and severe winds in Midland. Meanwhile, a large cluster of severe storms moved east across Ector County. These storm systems merged over eastern Ector and western Midland Counties, evolving into a large high precipitation supercell. Strong rear flank downdraft winds raked the city of Odessa on the storm's southern flank. Radar detected a strong low level circulation just west of the Midland International Airport, but storm spotters and post-event surveys found no evidence of a tornado. As the storm propagated southeast, damaging rear flank downdraft winds destroyed a carport along Farm to Market Road 1788 in western Midland County.In addition, a broken line of strong to severe thunderstorms developed within proximity to the frontal boundary over the northeast Permian Basin. Area warning radars detected a well-defined coma-head type circulation on the northeast part of the line. This circulation strengthened as it moved southeast into northern Mitchell County. Several rural residents observed a tornado southeast of Loraine.

Several rural residents observed a tornado southeast of Loraine as it was illuminated by near continuous lightning. Witnesses described the tornado as cone shaped, and indicated that vegetation was lofted into the the air in the tornado's debris cloud. The tornado was observed for at least four minutes in open rangeland, and no damage was reported.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS MAF issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:17 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:45 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:58 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.

Sweetwater/Avenger Field Airport (SWW), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2003 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

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.