EF2 tornado, Port Crescent to Grind Stone City, Michigan, June 26, 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 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

June 26, 2021

Touchdown

5:49 PM EDT (21:49 UTC)

Lifted

6:00 PM EDT (22:00 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

6.8 miles (11.0 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

6

Property damage

$1.9 million

County

Huron County

Touchdown point

44.015, -83.039

Lift-off point

44.066, -82.920

Record number

2106261549-01

26 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DTX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• Garage destroyed also by failure of garage door.
• Most injuries were cuts and bruises. One woman suffered a torn tendon in her leg. Another man broke his hand and was briefly knocked unconscious by flying debris.
• Most softwood trees on golf course snapped. Just two hardwood trees were snapped.

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

After several weeks of moderate to severe drought conditions in Southeast Michigan, an active weather pattern brought widespread rainfall and flooding to Metro Detroit and surrounding areas during the weekend of June 25-27th. Low pressure tracking along a stalled stationary boundary interacted with a very moist subtropical air mass to produce widespread 3 to 5 inches of rainfall across Metro Detroit (localized 6 to 8 inches), resulting in numerous reports of major flooding within the Detroit metro vicinity, especially Washtenaw and Wayne Counties. In addition to the heavy rain, an EF-2 tornado was observed near Port Austin in Huron County during this event just before 5 pm EST on June 26th.

A tornado touched down 4 miles SW of Port Austin just north of the intersection between Port Crescent Rd and Sand Rd. The tornado began as an EF-0, producing several snapped trees and tree limbs, uprooted trees, and damage to barns and outbuildings. The tornado then tracked northeast and crossed M-53 just south of its intersection with M-25. At this point, the tornado produced EF-2 damage to six houses, with three roofs completely detached, one house with major roof damage, two garages and one barn completely destroyed, and substantial tree damage. Estimated peak winds were 120 mph.|The tornado continued to track northeast toward N Hellems Rd and paralleled Pointe Aux Barques Rd, where numerous pine trees were damaged or destroyed and |some hardwood trees were snapped, consistent with EF-1 damage. The |tornado then tracked across the Eagle Bay public access point and |into Lake Huron.

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 tornado watch, issued at 20:05 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 0.05 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.

Port Hope (P58), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Detroit radar (KDTX), 154 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:46 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

11 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.