F0 tornado, Leesburg, Virginia, November 5, 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

November 5, 2003

Touchdown

3:04 PM EST (20:04 UTC)

Path length

4.0 miles (6.4 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Loudoun County

Touchdown point

39.120, -77.550

Lift-off point

39.120, -77.550

Record number

1376

A tornadic thunderstorm moved through Loudoun County during the afternoon of the 5th. Two tornadoes were produced in Northern Virginia. The first tornado touched down just west of Leesburg and moved east into downtown Leesburg. A second path was detected about a quarter mile north of the first. The damage with the second storm began near Route 7 west of Leesburg and continued east-northeast for another 50 yards. Several homes were damaged. The storms also produced straight-line wind damage on the south side of Purceville. A shed was blown off its foundation and a person was injured when a glass table slammed against a deck and shattered. A couple of other minor injuries were reported from flying debris associated with the thunderstorm winds.

A weak tornado touched down near Dry Mill Road, 2 miles west of Leesburg and moved east into downtown Leesburg. The tornado then moved slightly northeast to near the Balls Bluff Elementary School.The path was 5 miles long and 50 to 75 miles wide.

A weak tornado touched down near Route 7, one-half mile west of Leesburg. Many homes were damaged in the area around Fairview , Lakeview Way and in the Exeter Community of Leesburg. The path continued into Balls Bluff Regional Park. This tornado was 3.5 miles long and 50 to 75 yards across.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:43 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.

Leesburg/Godfrey (JYO), 5 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Sterling radar (KLWX), 17 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:02 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 VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.