EF0 tornado, Taylor Center, Michigan, July 31, 2018

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

July 31, 2018

Touchdown

12:44 AM EDT (04:44 UTC)

Lifted

12:46 AM EDT (04:46 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Wayne County

Touchdown point

42.199, -83.265

Lift-off point

42.199, -83.249

Record number

1807312244-01

After an abnormally dry July across lower Michigan, a low pressure system lifted up from the Ohio Valley and moved through extreme southeastern Michigan and brought some much needed rainfall. Showers on the afternoon and evening of July 31 and became heavier into the nighttime hours. As the center of the low pressure interacted with the marine layer over western Lake Erie shortly after midnight, a brief tornado formed over Wayne County despite relatively weak winds aloft. Heavy rain bands and thunderstorm activity resulted in rainfall totals near 4 inches in several locations while many more areas around the Metro Detroit area received 1-3 inches, prompting a Flash Flood Warning for the urban areas as most of the rainfall occurred over a period of 3 hours or less. A couple feet of water were reported over roadways in Dearborn Heights and Taylor during the early morning hours.

Brief tornado caused damage to a total of 3 buildings. Details include partial roof damage, displacement of a roof AC Unit, damage to a business sign, and some small tree damage. Emergency Management officials provided the details for this survey.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS DTX issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:44 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:15 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 01:00 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), 58 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:43 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 2018 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.