EF1 tornado, Bell Oak to Perry, Michigan, May 29, 2011

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

May 29, 2011

Touchdown

5:27 PM EDT (21:27 UTC)

Lifted

5:32 PM EDT (21:32 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.3 miles (5.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$75,000

Counties

Ingham and Shiawassee counties

Touchdown point

42.774, -84.265

Lift-off point

42.805, -84.221

Record number

1105291527-01

Severe thunderstorms developed during the mid to late afternoon hours of May 29 from Vicksburg east northeast to Battle Creek and Charlotte. An NWS storm survey found significant damage resulting from straight line wind damage resulting from severe thunderstorm winds of up to 85 to 100 mph. A state of emergency was declared for Calhoun county due to widespread wind damage.||The storms developed north of a warm front that separated mild weather to the north of it from hot weather south of the boundary. The storms traveled into northern Illinois just after noon, and then moved across southern lower Michigan between 2 pm and 6 pm. The storms strengthened as they reached far southern lower Michigan as they encountered warmer and more humid air. The NWS Grand Rapids storm survey teams found no conclusive evidence of any tornadoes from southern Kalamazoo county east northeast through Calhoun county and up into Eaton and Ingham counties. Nearly 40,000 people across Calhoun county lost power due to all the wind damage and lightning.

A thunderstorm complex rolled through southeast Michigan during the peak heating of the day, resulting in scattered wind damage reports across the area. Embedded circulations within the line of thunderstorms lead to localized wind gusts to 80 mph, with even one confirmed tornado over southern Shiawassee county.

A small tornado touched down in extreme northern Ingham county before crossing over into Shiawassee county. Trees were snapped in a 100 yard wide area, and both a residence and a barn had their roofs partially blown off.

A tornado which originated in Ingham county crossed into Shiawassee county near LoveJoy and Locke Roads at 528 PM, tracking northeast for around three miles, ending at Beard and Ruppert Roads at 532 pm. The damage path was about 100 yards wide. Damage was mostly soft and hard wood trees uprooted and snapped, with estimated max wind speed of 90 mph, making this Tornado an EF1.

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

33 minutes of warning. NWS GRR issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:54 UTC, 33 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:31 UTC and running to 22:01 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 20:00 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 Detroit radar (KDTX), 64 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:25 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 2011 tornado in MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan 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.