F1 tornado, Stratton, Vermont, July 21, 2003

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   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

F1

Date

July 21, 2003

Touchdown

9:56 PM EDT (01:56 UTC)

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Windham County

Touchdown point

43.030, -72.920

Lift-off point

43.030, -72.920

Record number

215

A large upper air trough dug across the western Great Lakes on Monday, July 21. At the surface, a deep low pressure area moved across the eastern Great Lakes, driving a warm front across New England during the evening hours. The air became very unstable in the warm air mass behind the front. A supercell, that originated in the Mid Hudson Valley of New York and producing a long lived significant tornado, spawned a second twister which touched down in the town of Pownal, Bennington County. The twister cut a swath longer than 25 miles and up 150 yards wide. After touching down in Pownal, the tornado moved northeast into the city of Bennington, then continued into the Green Mountain State Forest in extreme western Windham County where it caused significant forest damage. Most of the destruction was to trees. There was also some structural damages in Bennington County. A tree collapsed onto a house. Another massive pine slammed into a 100-year-old house's roof in Pownal. A steakhouse in the city of Bennington, suffered damage that closed it for a couple of days, including shattered windows and water damage due to an open roof. An awning had been blown from the deck of the structure, all the way across Route 7A. The owner was slammed against a wall while venturing outside on the open deck, with no injuries. During the height of the storm, power was knocked out to over 2,000 customers in extreme southern Vermont.

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

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:43 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.

Bennington More State (DDH), 31 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Albany radar (KENX), 106 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:56 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.

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

25 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.