EF1 tornado, Baroda to Arden, Michigan, June 5, 2010

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

June 5, 2010

Touchdown

11:36 PM EDT (03:36 UTC)

Lifted

11:39 PM EDT (03:39 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.3 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Berrien County

Touchdown point

41.986, -86.420

Lift-off point

41.984, -86.392

Record number

1006052136-01

A warm front worked north towards Lower Michigan during the evening hours of the 5th. Storms were initially slow to organize, but quickly intensified and became super-cellular as they moved off Lake Michigan. A combination of tornadoes and micro bursts were found in surveys across Berrien, Cass and St. Joseph counties.

A survey of the area between Baroda and Stevensville indicated damage consistent with a tornado. The damage started on Marrs Road, just west of Stevensville-Baroda Road and continued east-northeast. The damage started with a travel trailer being thrown and destroyed as well as some tree damage. The circulation tracked mainly over open fields until reaching an area of homes on Lincoln Ave where the entire roof was ripped off a home (DI: FR12, DOD: 6) and another home suffered slightly less roof damage. The circulation continued northeast, crossing Hollywood Road, north of Linco Road. Several one year old 24 inch diameter power poles were snapped (DI: ETL; DOD 4). In addition, a harrow and trailer were thrown from a barn roughly 150 to 200 yards into a field. The circulation appears to dissipate north of Linco Road on Scottdale Road. The tornado was roughly 200 yards wide at its peak. Maximum winds are estimated at around 125 mph.

Just to the southeast of the first tornado of the evening a separate storm produced another tornado about a mile southeast of the first one, on Linco Road. The circulation continued along the road where it struck a garage near the intersection of Linco and Garr Roads. The east side of the garage was blown outwards. The tornado then turned somewhat southeast ending on Michigan 139, where a pole barn was destroyed. The tornado reached a maximum width of around 100 yards with top winds estimated at around 100 mph.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS IWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:33 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:11 UTC and running to 06:17 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 01:06 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 Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:36 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2010 tornado in MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan nowThe forecast where you are

42 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.