Tornadoes · United States · Minnesota · 1996

F1 tornado, Wheaton, Minnesota, October 26, 1996

This F1 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Traverse County on October 26, 1996, touching down at 3:23 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

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

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

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

  3. F2113 to 157 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. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 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.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
October 26, 1996
Touchdown
3:23 PM CDT (20:23 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Traverse County
Touchdown point
45.800, -96.500
Lift-off point
45.800, -96.500
Record number
920

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado touched down in Wheaton and severely damaged the roof of a horse barn at the fairgrounds. The tornado leveled the garden center, broke some windows out of the care center. One large piece of debris smashed a wall of the care center laundry room. The care center also suffered roof and garage damage and a security fence was knocked over. The former massage therapy center was leveled and the back side of the carwash was blown out and the roof of the bowling alley was blown off. A piece of the bowling alley roof punched a hole in the roof of the Wheaton Inn. Shingles were blew off, some windows broke, and another part of the inn's roof buckled. Rocks from the roof of the bowling alley pitted the sides of cars at the inn. Path length and width were estimated.

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

The warnings

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:53 UTC21:25 UTCTornado WarningABR

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:23 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 air that afternoon

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.

Aberdeen, SD (KABR), 12:00Z

8.4 hours before the tornado, 179 km from the path. October 26, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Aberdeen, SD at 12:00Z on 1996-10-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -16994, lifted condensation level 543 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Aberdeen, SD at 12:00Z on 1996-10-26The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 308 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 65 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-16994 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
543 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
65 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
308 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
393 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
2.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Aberdeen, SD (KABR), 00:00Z

3.6 hours after it, 179 km from the path. October 27, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Aberdeen, SD at 00:00Z on 1996-10-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -80764, lifted condensation level 916 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Aberdeen, SD at 00:00Z on 1996-10-27The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 92 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-80764 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
916 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
92 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
81 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Aberdeen radar (KABR), 154 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:24 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of October 26, 1996

25 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
October 268:23 AM CDTF1Holt, NE0.8501$10,000
October 268:50 AM CDTF1Holt, NE1.0753$150,000
October 2610:00 AM CDTF0Knox, NE0.210
October 261:30 PM CDTF1Hamlin, SD1.025$50,000
October 261:35 PM CDTF0Deuel, SD1.025
October 261:45 PM CDTF1Deuel, SD1.025
October 261:50 PM CDTF1Deuel, SD0.525
October 262:05 PM CDTF1Grant, SD1.075
October 262:20 PM CDTF0Grant, SD0.525
October 262:24 PM CDTF0Grant, SD0.525
October 262:24 PM CDTF0Grant, SD0.525
October 262:34 PM CDTF0Roberts, SD0.525
October 263:01 PM CDTF0Big Stone, MN1.025
October 263:59 PM CDTF1Swift, MN4.0440
October 264:15 PM CDTF1Pope, MN2.0350
October 264:15 PM CDTF1Kandiyohi, MN7.0500
October 264:15 PM CDTF2Douglas, MN9.08804
October 264:25 PM CDTF1Douglas, MN8.05002
October 265:10 PM CDTF2Otter Tail, MN17.0751$400,000
October 265:14 PM CDTF1Stearns, MN1.0350
October 265:17 PM CDTF2Stearns, MN5.03503
October 265:30 PM CDTF2Wadena, MN4.075$750,000
October 266:12 PM CDTF1Isanti, MN12.08801
October 266:14 PM CDTF0Hubbard, MN0.525
October 267:00 PM CDTF2Crow Wing, MN0.7150$50,000

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.