F0 tornado, Belle Plaine to New Market, Minnesota, May 9, 2001

1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

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

2. F173 to 112 mph

   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.

Rating

F0

Date

May 9, 2001

Touchdown

7:29 PM CDT (00:29 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Scott County

Touchdown point

44.600, -93.570

Lift-off point

44.600, -93.570

Record number

867

Tornado passed over open fields, no damage reported.

Touched down briefly in open field near south end of Pleasant lake. No damage incurred.

Tornado touched down briefly in open field near south end of Cedar Lake. No damage reported.

Tornado touched down briefly in open field. No damage reported.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:26 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:15 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.

NWS Twin Cities, MN wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at May 9, 3:00 PM CDT, 4 hours 29 minutes earlier.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN
300 PM CDT WED MAY 9 2001

THE PROBLEM CONTINUES TO BE THUNDERSTORM DEVELOPMENT AND SEVERE
POTENTIAL.  MID AND HIGH LEVEL MOISTURE HAS RETARDED HEATING IN
CENTRAL AND ERN PORTIONS OF THE AREA.  A WARM FRONT EXTENDED ACROSS
SW MN AND APPEARS TO BE THE FOCUS FOR DEVELOPMENT.  HOWEVER A  CAP
EXISTS WITH VERY WARM 850 TEMPERATURES.  SHEAR AND INSTABILITY ARE
STILL IN PLACE TO FAVOR AT LEAST SEVERE STORMS.  WITH THE
APPROACHING SHORT WAVE TROF...NOW OVER ERN SD...THERE IS ENOUGH
GOING ON TO MENTION SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS WITH A SEVERE POTENTIAL
FOR ANY DEVELOPMENT.

MODELS DIFFER ON ORGANIZATION OF THE FRONT AFTER IT MOVES THROUGH
THE AREA...BUT BOUNDARY SEEMS TO REMAIN IN VICINITY OF NRN IA AND
CENTRAL WI.  WITH COLD AIR ALOFT AND NWRLY FLOW PLUS THE AVAILABLE
MOISTURE...SOME MENTION OF SHOWERS IS WARRANTED THURSDAY AND
THURSDAY NIGHT.  THE EXTENDED WILL CONTINUE DRY WITH CLOUDINESS AND
COOL TEMPERATURES.  THE LATEST AVN DEVELOPS WARM ADVECTION CLOUDS IN
THE MID LEVELS...BUT DOES NOT DEVELOP ANY PRECIPITATION.  A STRONG
ENOUGH WAVE IN THE WESTERLIES IS ENOUGH TO MENTION STHOWERS MONDAY
AND TUESDAY.

.MSP...NONE.
 SCOTT

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 Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:26 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

9 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.