Tornadoes · United States · Wisconsin · 2003

F0 tornado, Oshkosh Wittman Fld, Wisconsin, June 8, 2003

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Winnebago County on June 8, 2003, touching down at 12:40 PM CDT and reaching 15 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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 8, 2003
Touchdown
12:40 PM CDT (17:40 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
15 yards (14 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Winnebago County
Touchdown point
43.980, -88.630
Lift-off point
43.980, -88.630
Record number
1239

What the Weather Service recorded

Showers and thunderstorms developed across central and east-central Wisconsin during the late morning and afternoon hours, producing funnel clouds and four tornadoes.A slow moving tornado that touched down about 4 miles south of Marshfield (Wood co.) tore siding from a garage, broke windows, destroyed a playhouse and a dog house, and blew two 50 pound barrels 200 yards away.A tornado briefly touched down west of Oshkosh (Winnebago co.) but no damage was reported. Two other tornadoes that touched down over Lake Winnebago were viewed by numerous participants of a fishing tournament that was taking place on the lake. One of these tornadoes touched down about 5 miles east of Oshkosh (Winnebago co.) and the other touched down about 4 miles west of Brothertown (Calumet co.).

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
17:47 UTC18:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGRB

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 16:07 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.

Green Bay/Straub, WI (KGRB), 12:00Z

5.7 hours before the tornado, 70 km from the path. June 8, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Green Bay/Straub, WI at 12:00Z on 2003-06-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -48252, lifted condensation level 575 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Green Bay/Straub, WI at 12:00Z on 2003-06-08The 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 85 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 19 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-48252 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
575 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
85 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
65 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Green Bay/Straub, WI (KGRB), 00:00Z

6.3 hours after it, 70 km from the path. June 9, 2003.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Green Bay/Straub, WI at 00:00Z 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 74 joules per kilogram, CIN -12, lifted condensation level 746 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, Green Bay/Straub, WI at 00:00Z 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 14 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 18 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
74 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-12 J/kg
Surface CAPE
926 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
746 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
14 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
6.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Green Bay radar (KGRB), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:37 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 WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 8, 2003

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 81:20 PM CDTF0Winnebago, WI0.540
June 81:42 PM CDTF0Calumet, WI0.440
June 81:59 PM CDTF0Wood, WI0.150$10,000
June 82:33 PM CDTF0Fond du Lac, WI30.01
June 84:58 PM EDTF1Livingston, MI1.0100$10,000
June 85:35 PM EDTF1Genesee, MI3.0100$300,000
June 85:51 PM EDTF0Osceola, MI0.130
June 86:34 PM EDTF0Lapeer, MI0.150
June 86:45 PM EDTF0Eaton, MI0.230$2,000

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.