F2 tornado, Tomahawk, Wisconsin, September 30, 2002

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   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

F2

Date

September 30, 2002

Touchdown

7:30 PM CDT (00:30 UTC)

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$70,000

County

Lincoln County

Touchdown point

45.470, -89.900

Lift-off point

45.470, -89.830

Record number

854

Severe thunderstorms developed in unstable air in the vicinity of an east to west warm front that stretched across northern Wisconsin. These storms produced large hail, wind damage and two tornadoes. Hail to golf ball size covered the ground in the Minocqua area (Oneida co.) and golf ball to tennis ball size hail fell from Arbor Vitae (Vilas co.) to St. Germain (Vilas co.). The most significant wind damage was in southern Oneida county. In the Woodboro area (Oneida co.) a tree that was downed by high winds smashed a pickup truck.A tornado touched down in southeast Florence county. It destroyed a pole barn, a garage that was under construction and 6 to 10 outbuildings in its path. It caused minor damage to a farm home and downed 150 to 250 trees and power lines, causing numerous power outages. The tornado tracked east-northeast across the Menominee river into upper Michigan where it continued to do damage.Another tornado that touched down 8 miles west of Tomahawk (Lincoln co.) did significant damage, uprooting or snapping off thousands of trees along its path. A house in the path of the tornado sustained major structural damage. All outbuildings on the property were destroyed, a camping trailer was thrown 300 feet and a car was thrown into a tree, coming to rest at least 15 feet above the ground. Two barns were also destroyed.The storms knocked out power to around 3,000 customers in the Tomahawk area (Lincoln co.) and about 600 customers in the Rhinelander and Crandon areas.

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

36 minutes of warning. NWS GRB issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:54 UTC, 36 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:47 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.

Merrill (RRL), 32 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Green Bay radar (KGRB), 175 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:30 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 2002 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.