Tornadoes · United States · Minnesota · 2004
F1 tornado, Wilno to Porter, Minnesota, June 12, 2004
From Wilno to Porter, this F1 tornado ran 1.6 miles across Lincoln and Yellow Medicine counties on June 12, 2004, touching down at 8:45 PM CDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 of property damage.
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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- June 12, 2004
- Touchdown
- 8:45 PM CDT (01:45 UTC)
- Path length
- 1.6 miles (2.6 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $100,000
- Counties
- Lincoln and Yellow Medicine counties
- Touchdown point
- 44.620, -96.670
- Lift-off point
- 44.630, -96.200
- Record number
- 290
What the Weather Service recorded
A tornado destroyed a barn, machine shed, and several outbuildings on two farms. The tornado blew the roof off a hoop barn and caused a tarp covering the barn to fall on hogs inside, suffocating several of them. Two sprayers, three tractors, and other equipment in the machine shed were damaged. The tornado also damaged trees and crops.
A tornado crossed into Yellow Medicine County from Lincoln County just west of Porter. It dissipated shortly after with little if any damage reported. The time was 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.
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 01:24 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), 00:00Z
1.8 hours before the tornado, 158 km from the path. June 13, 2004.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 334 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -3 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 659 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2209 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 39 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 2 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 9 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 26 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 8.5 K/km
Aberdeen, SD (KABR), 12:00Z
10.2 hours after it, 158 km from the path. June 13, 2004.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 5 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -189 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1492 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 19 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -27 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -8 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
The radar
The Sioux Falls radar (KFSD), 118 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:45 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01:35 UTC | HAIL 1 | 5 S Louisburg | Lac Qui Parle, MN | GROUND NEARLY WHITE. |
| 01:55 UTC | HAIL 1 | 4 Sw Canby | Yellow Medicine, MN | |
| 02:07 UTC | HAIL 1 | Canby | Yellow Medicine, MN | |
| 02:07 UTC | HAIL 1 | Canby | Yellow Medicine, MN | |
| 02:14 UTC | TSTM WND GST 90 | 7 W Porter | Yellow Medicine, MN | |
| 02:20 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | 1 Nw Porter | Yellow Medicine, MN | |
| 02:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Se Louisburg | Lac Qui Parle, MN | TWO GRAINS BINS DAMAGED. SHED DOWN. TREE DOWN. |
| 02:30 UTC | HAIL 1 | 1 Se Louisburg | Lac Qui Parle, MN | FIELD DESTROYED BY WIND DRIVEN HAIL. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2004 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 12, 2004
16 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 12 | 8:45 AM CDT | F0 | Saint Francois, MO | 1.5 | 50 | |||
| June 12 | 11:55 AM CDT | F0 | Breckinridge, KY | 0.8 | 50 | $100,000 | ||
| June 12 | 12:28 PM CDT | F0 | Saunders, NE | 0.5 | 100 | |||
| June 12 | 4:40 PM CDT | F0 | Cherokee, KS | 0.1 | 25 | |||
| June 12 | 4:50 PM CDT | F0 | Jasper, MO | 0.1 | 25 | |||
| June 12 | 4:55 PM CDT | F0 | Pecos, TX | 1.3 | 150 | |||
| June 12 | 7:10 PM CDT | F0 | Sumner, KS | 1.5 | 75 | |||
| June 12 | 7:25 PM CDT | F3 | Sumner, KS | 4.0 | 75 | 2 | $500,000 | |
| June 12 | 9:00 PM EDT | F1 | Allendale, SC | 3.0 | 150 | |||
| June 12 | 8:25 PM CDT | F0 | Cowley, KS | 3.0 | 100 | |||
| June 12 | 8:55 PM CDT | F0 | Cowley, KS | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| June 12 | 8:56 PM CDT | F0 | Jones, TX | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| June 12 | 9:15 PM CDT | F0 | Lyon, MN | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 12 | 9:15 PM CDT | F0 | Cowley, KS | 1.0 | 50 | |||
| June 12 | 9:58 PM CDT | F0 | Elk, KS | 1.0 | 50 | |||
| June 12 | 10:41 PM CDT | F0 | Elk, KS | 1.0 | 75 |
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.