EF1 tornado, Marshall to Rice Creek, Michigan, February 27, 2024

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 27, 2024

Touchdown

12:29 AM EST (05:29 UTC)

Lifted

12:40 AM EST (05:40 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

5.8 miles (9.3 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.0 million

County

Calhoun County

Touchdown point

42.310, -84.980

Lift-off point

42.330, -84.870

Record number

2402272329-01

20 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.

• Laying east. Multiple trees

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

Record high temperatures were set across the area on February 27th, and the unseasonably warm and relatively humid airmass set the stage for an early season severe weather event. A line of severe thunderstorms moved in from the southwest |and several supercell thunderstorms developed as well. ||One long lived supercell with a persistent mesocyclone caused damage along the I-94 corridor which included an EF-1 Tornado near Marshall Michigan. Along with this supercell, a line of storms brought hail up to two and a half inches in diameter to a few locations south of I-96.

A tornado touched down near sixteen and a quarter mile road and moved east northeast and uprooted or snapped hundreds of trees along its path. The tornado heavily damaged a few outbuildings and caused roof damage to a number of homes with shingles ripped off and tore away siding. The tornado ended southwest of twenty one and a half mile road and L drive north. No injuries or fatalities were reported.

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

28 minutes of warning. NWS GRR issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:01 UTC, 28 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:51 UTC and running to 09:06 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 00:55 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), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:28 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 2024 tornado in MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.