F1 tornado, Bedford, Michigan, June 12, 1998

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

June 12, 1998

Touchdown

4:34 PM EDT (20:34 UTC)

Path length

2.5 miles (4.0 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Calhoun County

Touchdown point

42.380, -85.270

Lift-off point

42.380, -85.220

Record number

520

Several severe thunderstorms developed during the afternoon of Friday, June 12th across southwest and south central Lower Michigan in an unstable air mass south of a stationary front, which extended east-west across the central portion of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. One of these storms developed into a supercell over southern Barry County. This supercell thunderstorm propagated east-southeast across Calhoun and Jackson Counties from approximately 4:20 pm until 5:45 pm EDT and spawned an F1 tornado and two damaging microbursts. The microburst which hit Pennfield Township in Calhoun County killed a 75-year old male and injured 2 females (one of which, a 13-year old female, was critically injured) when their respective modular homes were destroyed. NWS Grand Rapids officials estimated wind speeds reached 120 mph in the Pennfield Township downburst. The tornado did not result in any deaths or injuries, but did approximately $50,000 in damage just south of Bedford in Calhoun County. Overall, downed trees and power lines and lightning strikes knocked out power to 22,000 in southern Michigan, most of which occurred in Barry, Calhoun, and Wayne Counties (in southeast Lower Michigan).

Damage surveys conducted by the National Weather Service with the assistance of the Civil Air Patrol and Calhoun County Emergency Management confirmed a brief tornado touchdown occurred in Bedford Township of northwest Calhoun County at 4:34 pm EDT on Friday, June 12th. The tornado touched down in a low wooded area near Kirby Lake, 2 miles southwest of the village of Bedford. The tornado crossed Collier Road and travelled along Halbert Road and caused extensive damage to trees from Wanbascon Creek to about 3/4 of a mile east of Michigan Highway 37. The storm path length was approximately 2.5 statute miles long and up to 600 feet (or 200 yards) wide. It appeared that most of the tornadic winds remained aloft, clipping the upper half of trees like a large weed wacker. Scattered homes in the area received minor damage consisting of broken windows, TV antennas bent over roof tops, and damage to shingles and siding. A few homes sustained roof damage as the result of trees and large limbs being blown down on the dwellings. Based on the estimates from the damage survey in Bedford Township, this particular tornado was rated F1 (73-112mph) on the Fujita Scale. The tornado lifted approximately 4 minutes after touching down as the storm continued to move east-southeast into Pennfield Township. No injuries or fatalities were reported as a direct result of this tornado touchdown. Parts of Michigan Highway 37 were closed for a time after the storm to clear away downed trees and power lines.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS GRR issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:32 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:20 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:45 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.

The Grand Rapids radar (KGRR), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:32 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 1998 tornado in MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan 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.