Tornadoes · United States · Utah · 2003

F0 tornado, Utah County, Utah, June 9, 2003

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Utah County on June 9, 2003, touching down at 4:19 PM MDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $2,000 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
June 9, 2003
Touchdown
4:19 PM MDT (22:19 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$2,000
County
Utah County
Touchdown point
40.050, -111.730
Lift-off point
40.050, -111.730
Record number
369

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:06 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.

Salt Lake City I, UT (KSLC), 12:00Z

10.3 hours before the tornado, 82 km from the path. June 9, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Salt Lake City I, UT at 12:00Z on 2003-06-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 25 joules per kilogram, CIN -203, lifted condensation level 2964 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Salt Lake City I, UT at 12:00Z on 2003-06-09The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 156 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 40 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
25 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-203 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2964 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
40 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
156 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
226 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Salt Lake City I, UT (KSLC), 00:00Z

1.7 hours after it, 82 km from the path. June 10, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Salt Lake City I, UT at 00:00Z on 2003-06-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 17 joules per kilogram, CIN -27, lifted condensation level 3065 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Salt Lake City I, UT at 00:00Z on 2003-06-10The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 51 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 39 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
17 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-27 J/kg
Surface CAPE
85 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
3065 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
51 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
70 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
9.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Provo Municipal (Awos) (PVU), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:35 UTC78.846.460° 12 kt1010.2
20:55 UTC82.446.470° 8 kt1009.5
21:15 UTC84.248.2140° 7 kt1009.1
21:35 UTC8646.4150° 9 kt1008.8
21:55 UTC82.446.4300° 8 kt1008.8
22:15 UTC78.846.4310° 9 kt1008.8VCTS
22:35 UTC75.248.2240° 19 kt231010.8TS
22:55 UTC89.644.6250° 18 kt361012.9TS
23:15 UTC64.448.2210° 18 kt261012.9
23:35 UTC62.648.2130° 16 kt221011.9
23:55 UTC62.651.8150° 24 kt311011.2
00:15 UTC64.451.8150° 12 kt1011.2

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

The radar

The Salt Lake City radar (KMTX), 148 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:18 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 UtahEvery tornado in Utah since 1950Warnings in force in Utah nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 9, 2003

20 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 94:18 PM MDTF0Ziebach, SD0.110
June 95:58 PM CDTF0Keya Paha, NE0.120
June 96:30 PM CDTF0Knox, NE0.140
June 96:59 PM CDTF0Custer, NE0.110
June 97:05 PM CDTF0Holt, NE2.030$10,000
June 97:12 PM CDTF0Holt, NE0.520$30,000
June 97:15 PM CDTF1Tripp, SD10.210$10,000
June 97:20 PM CDTF0Custer, NE0.110
June 97:30 PM CDTF3Holt, NE23.0880$5.7 million
June 97:35 PM CDTF0Holt, NE0.120$10,000
June 97:37 PM CDTF0Cedar, NE0.040
June 97:40 PM CDTF1Custer, NE4.0580$30,000
June 97:40 PM CDTF1Valley, NE3.0300$250,000
June 97:42 PM CDTF0Gregory, SD0.150
June 97:45 PM CDTF0Graham, KS2.075
June 98:02 PM CDTF0Gregory, SD4.0400
June 98:12 PM CDTF0Graham, KS1.020
June 98:20 PM CDTF0Woodbury, IA0.150
June 98:22 PM CDTF0Valley, NE0.225
June 98:43 PM CDTF0Antelope, NE5.0100

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.