EF1 tornado, Westgate to Belmont, Michigan, August 24, 2023

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

August 24, 2023

Touchdown

8:15 PM EDT (00:15 UTC)

Lifted

8:30 PM EDT (00:30 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

8.7 miles (14.0 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10 million

County

Kent County

Touchdown point

43.064, -85.741

Lift-off point

43.094, -85.577

Record number

2308241815-01

19 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GRR, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Two trees down pointed to the north. End of tornado damage.
• Start point of tornado path. Apple trees down.

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

Severe storms developed during the evening hours in an extremely unstable environment. Two tornadoes occurred. The first tornado touched down in west central Kent County from Alpine Township to Plainfield Township and was rated an EF-1. The second tornado touched down in eastern Ingham County from Williamston to Webberville, before continuing on into Livingston County, and was rated an EF-2 in Ingham County before weakening to an EF-1 in Livingston County. The thunderstorms produced numerous areas of 60 to 75 mph wind gusts and vivid lightning. The combination of the tornadoes, strong wind gusts, and continuous lightning resulted in power outages to 460,000 customers statewide.

A tornado began east of Peach Ridge Avenue and north of 6 Mile Road and moved east northeast for almost 9 miles, ending just west of Rockford High School. Hundreds of trees were snapped or uprooted. Structural damage was done to buildings in the 5600 block of Alpine Avenue and to homes in a subdivision just north of the intersection of 7 Mile Road and Pine Island Drive. Peak wind speeds in this area were estimated to be 110 mph making this an upper end EF-1 tornado.

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 22:35 UTC and running to 02:38 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 19:55 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 Grand Rapids radar (KGRR), 23 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:14 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 2023 tornado in MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.