EF1 tornado, White Lake to (Ptk)Pontiac Arpt, Michigan, July 24, 2021

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

July 24, 2021

Touchdown

7:54 PM EDT (23:54 UTC)

Lifted

7:59 PM EDT (23:59 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.7 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$8.5 million

County

Oakland County

Touchdown point

42.670, -83.497

Lift-off point

42.673, -83.464

Record number

2107241754-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DTX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Woman broke are when trees fell into home.

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

An active severe weather season for Southeast Michigan continued on July 24, 2021 with another round of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Thunderstorms initially developed mid-afternoon just south of Cadillac and tracked southeastward into the Tri-Cities and Metro Detroit regions through the evening. Storms began as a broken line and strengthened quickly as they moved into a region of favorable dynamics and ample instability. Embedded rotation within this line produced three confirmed tornadoes in White Lake, Armada, and Clayton Township. An additional tornado spun up over Port Austin. Numerous reports of straight-line wind damage, namely power outages and tree damage, were also observed with many of these reports coming from western Oakland County. As the line of storms tracked south of I-94, the tornado threat diminished; although bowing segments embedded within the line continued to produce damaging wind gusts. In addition to wind damage, most areas observed 1-2 inches (with locally higher amounts) of rainfall which led to flash flooding in some low-lying and flood-prone areas. At least 140,000 DTE customers lost power at the height of the storms. Between the tornadoes and wind damage, Oakland county was estimated sustaining close to 10 million dolllars in damage, with around 4.5 million across Macomb county.

A tornado touched down 1 mile NNE of White Lake just west of the intersection of Teggerdine Rd and Pontiac Lake Rd. The tornado began as an EF-0 in which several healthy trees were uprooted and snapped. The tornado then tracked southeast toward a neighborhood at the intersection of Pontiac Lake Rd and Howland Blvd where it produced EF-1 damage, including shingle and roof damage, garage damage with one garage door completely blown off, and numerous healthy trees uprooted and snapped. Peak winds were estimated at 100 mph. A house was damaged when multiple pine trees fell onto it, resulting in one minor injury. The tornado then tracked to the northeast and crossed Pontiac Lake Rd before tracking across Pontiac Lake as an EF-0, in which it produced shingle damage and uprooted numerous trees in neighborhoods located on the peninsula north of Pontiac Lake Rd along Buckingham St and a second peninsula off of Gale Rd near Tackles Dr. The tornado then tracked northeast of the peninsulas and lifted while over the water on Pontiac Lake prior to reaching Gale Rd.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:43 UTC and running to 02:00 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:10 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), 3 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:55 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 2021 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.