Tornadoes · United States · Virginia · 2003

F1 tornado, Tabb, Virginia, August 7, 2003

This F1 tornado ran 0.2 miles across York County on August 7, 2003, touching down at 11:56 AM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $20,000 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 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.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
August 7, 2003
Touchdown
11:56 AM EDT (15:56 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$20,000
County
York County
Touchdown point
37.130, -76.430
Lift-off point
37.130, -76.430
Record number
624

What the Weather Service recorded

Tornado (F1) damage occurred near Victory Boulevard and Running Man Trail, with a dozen or so trees down. Also, damage to 4 houses occurred due to trees snapping off and falling on the homes.

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

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 12:40 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.

Wallops Is Stn, VA (KWAL), 12:00Z

3.9 hours before the tornado, 127 km from the path. August 7, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Wallops Is Stn, VA at 12:00Z on 2003-08-07Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 720 joules per kilogram, CIN -20, lifted condensation level 552 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°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, Wallops Is Stn, VA at 12:00Z on 2003-08-07The 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 21 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 29 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
720 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-20 J/kg
Surface CAPE
823 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
552 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
21 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
83 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Wallops Is Stn, VA (KWAL), 00:00Z

8.1 hours after it, 127 km from the path. August 8, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Wallops Is Stn, VA at 00:00Z on 2003-08-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 439 joules per kilogram, CIN -23, lifted condensation level 612 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°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, Wallops Is Stn, VA at 00:00Z on 2003-08-08The 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 28 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 16 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
439 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-23 J/kg
Surface CAPE
321 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
612 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
28 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
14 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Newport News (PHF), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
14:07 UTC73.473.40° 0 kt1011.2-RA
14:16 UTC73.473.460° 3 kt1011.2-RA BR
14:54 UTC747370° 4 kt1010.8RA BR
14:58 UTC73.473.4100° 5 kt1010.8RA BR
15:05 UTC73.471.6110° 5 kt1010.8+RA BR
15:37 UTC71.671.640° 5 kt1010.2+RA FG
15:54 UTC72710° 0 kt1010.2+RA BR
15:57 UTC71.671.670° 5 kt1010.2+RA BR
16:10 UTC71.671.620° 5 kt1009.8-RA BR
16:47 UTC73.471.690° 5 kt1009.8-RA
16:54 UTC737260° 6 kt1009.5
17:17 UTC71.671.670° 6 kt1009.5
17:54 UTC7372 5 kt1009.1

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

The radar

The Norfolk radar (KAKQ), 54 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:56 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.

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of August 7, 2003

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 712:00 AM MDTF0Garfield, MT0.00
August 75:10 PM EDTF0Palm Beach, FL1.570$50,000
August 75:30 PM EDTF1Palm Beach, FL4.030028$80 million

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.