EF1 tornado, Sumnerville to Vandalia, Michigan, February 28, 2017

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

February 28, 2017

Touchdown

9:12 PM EST (02:12 UTC)

Lifted

9:15 PM EST (02:15 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.7 miles (4.3 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cass County

Touchdown point

41.878, -85.950

Lift-off point

41.897, -85.904

Record number

1702282012-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS IWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• severe damage to unoccupied mobile home. debris thrown to ne.
• unoccupied home. 3/4 of western part of tralier cleaned off and debris thrown to the north. Base shifted slightly but still generally on blocks.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A warm front moved into far southern Lower Michigan, enhancing low level shear and an already unstable environment to allow for a line of thunderstorms to develop and become severe as it tracked across far southern Lower Michigan and far northern Indiana. Sporadic wind damage reports were noted, along with occasional circulations along the line producing brief tornadoes in Berrien, Cass and St. Joseph counties. Additional severe weather occurred with a second line of storms during the early morning hours of March 1st.

Tornado touched down a field southwest of town and caused extensive tree damage as it tracked into the far south side of town. Two single wide mobile homes were destroyed |along with widespread tree damage and additional minor house damage before the tornado crossed through the Dowagiac Elks Golf Club and then dissipated/lifted as it crossed Dowagiac Creek. Maximum wind speeds were estimated at 105 mph.

Tornado touched down southwest of the intersection of Brownsville St and Calvin Center Road in a wooded area and then traveled rapidly northeast, just missing the Calvin Center Seventh Day Adventist Church. Several large trees were uprooted here along with chain link fence pulled from the ground. Some minor damage was noted to the church including stripped siding and shingle loss. More extensive tree and structural damage to homes was noted just northeast of here including a roof off a single wide mobile home, a garage lost part of the roof and a two story house was twisted on its foundation along with roof damage. In addition dozens of snapped/uprooted trees were observed. Additional tree damage occurred northeast toward Paradise Lake where several houses sustained minor roof and siding damage along with uprooted trees down on houses. The tornado continued through a heavily wooded swamp before dissipating south of Donnell Lake. Maximum wind speeds were estimated at 110 mph.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 00:38 UTC and running to 07:43 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 00:57 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.

Elkhart Municipa (EKM), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northern Indiana radar (KIWX), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:13 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 2017 tornado in MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan nowThe forecast where you are

29 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.