Tornadoes · United States · Minnesota · 2010
EF0 tornado, Winsted Arpt to Winsted, Minnesota, June 17, 2010
From Winsted Arpt to Winsted, this EF0 tornado ran 0.8 miles across McLeod County on June 17, 2010, touching down at 5:23 PM CDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF0
- Date
- June 17, 2010
- Touchdown
- 5:23 PM CDT (22:23 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:26 PM CDT (22:26 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 0.8 miles (1.3 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- McLeod County
- Touchdown point
- 44.969, -94.082
- Lift-off point
- 44.977, -94.072
- Record number
- 1006171623-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Several strong storms developed in west-central Minnesota during the mid afternoon hours of June 17th. ||These storms quickly become severe and produced softball size hail northwest of Alexandria and a tornado near Leaf Valley that became the EF-4 that moved through Wadena, Minnesota. ||By the late afternoon, numerous thunderstorms developed across southern Minnesota along the leading edge of extreme instability. ||Numerous funnel cloud reports and a few brief tornado touchdowns were noted prior to 5 pm, but once the low level shear (0-1 km) increased significantly from 15 knots, to over 35 knots, strong tornadoes developed along the Iowa border.| |These storms along the Iowa border produced a series of long-lived tornadoes near Albert Lea, Minnesota. Very large hail also accompanied some tornadoes along with flash flooding.
The tornado touched down in a rural area. Some trees were broken, a gravity box was tipped over, and minor crop damage occurred.
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.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:54 UTC and running to 02:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18:54 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | MPX |
| 21:21 UTC | 22:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MPX |
| 22:07 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MPX |
| 22:28 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | MPX |
| 23:09 UTC | 23:33 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MPX |
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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:06 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.
Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 12:00Z
10.4 hours before the tornado, 40 km from the path. June 17, 2010.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -317 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1224 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 110 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 85 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
The radar
The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 43 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:24 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:12 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Gibbon | Sibley, MN | |
| 21:17 UTC | HAIL 0.5 | 2 Ne Cosmos | Meeker, MN | |
| 21:59 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | Kimball | Stearns, MN | |
| 22:03 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Kingston | Meeker, MN | ROTATING WALL CLOUD |
| 22:05 UTC | HAIL 1 | South Haven | Wright, MN | |
| 22:07 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 1 N Cokato | Wright, MN | WALL CLOUD THAT IS NON ROTATING AND NOT WELL DEFINED |
| 22:10 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 3 Nw Cokato | Wright, MN | |
| 22:10 UTC | HAIL 1 | 3 E Silver Lake | Mcleod, MN | |
| 22:19 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | Winsted | Mcleod, MN | |
| 22:20 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Big Lake | Sherburne, MN | LOWERING WALL CLOUD |
| 22:20 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Gibbon | Sibley, MN | JUST NORTH OF TOWN |
| 22:21 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Ne Winsted | Mcleod, MN | |
| 22:23 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | South Haven | Wright, MN | |
| 22:23 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | St Augusta | Stearns, MN | |
| 22:23 UTC | TORNADO | 1 W Winsted | Mcleod, MN | TOUCHDOWN NEAR 245TH ST AND CABLE AVE. |
| 22:26 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | 8 S Waverly | Carver, MN | |
| 22:28 UTC | TORNADO | Winsted | Mcleod, MN | |
| 22:30 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 2 Ene Fairhaven | Stearns, MN | WALL CLOUD |
| 22:30 UTC | TORNADO | Lester Prairie | Mcleod, MN | DELAYED REPORT. APPROXIMATE TIME. |
| 22:35 UTC | HAIL 2.5 | 3 N Clear Lake | Sherburne, MN | |
| 22:39 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Buffalo | Wright, MN | SPOTTER COULD NOT TELL IF IT WAS REACHING THE GROUND DUE TO TREES. FUNNEL TO THEIR NE. |
| 22:43 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Clearwater | Wright, MN | ROTATING WALL CLOUD |
| 22:45 UTC | HAIL 1 | Montrose | Wright, MN | |
| 22:50 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Buffalo | Wright, MN | ROTATING WALL CLOUD |
| 22:50 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Buffalo | Wright, MN | |
| 22:52 UTC | TORNADO | 1 W Winsted | Mcleod, MN | ON 245TH ST...1.5 FT TREE DOWN AND A GRAVITY BOX /WHICH IS A METAL FARM IMPLEMENT/ TIPPED OVER. |
| 22:54 UTC | HAIL 1 | 3 N Kimball | Stearns, MN | |
| 22:54 UTC | HAIL 1 | 3 N Kimball | Stearns, MN | |
| 23:03 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Buffalo | Wright, MN | COULD NOT TELL IF REACHING GROUND BUT DID NOT SEE DEBRIS. |
| 23:05 UTC | TORNADO | 2 N Buffalo | Wright, MN | LOW END EF-1 TORNADO WITH TOUCHDOW NEAR 35TH ST AND BRADDOCK AVE. PATH LENGTH 5 MILES WITH MAXIMUM WIDTH OF 50 YARDS. |
| 23:05 UTC | TORNADO | Buffalo | Wright, MN | NORTH SIDE OF BUFFALO. CONFIRMED DEBRIS. TORNADO IS OCCASIONALLY LIFTING. |
| 23:07 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 4 Ne Glencoe | Mcleod, MN | WALL CLOUD CO RD 15 AND 7 |
| 23:12 UTC | TORNADO | 6 E Maple Lake | Wright, MN | BLOCKED BY TREES |
| 23:16 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Sse Monticello | Wright, MN | BRIEF DEBRIS CLOUD ROUGHLY 3 MILES WEST OF FENNING AVE NE MOTICELLO. |
| 23:22 UTC | HAIL 1 | Monticello | Wright, MN | |
| 23:28 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | N Monticello | Wright, MN | NEAR SHERBORNE/WRIGHT BORDER ON HWY 95 NON ROTATING WALL CLOUD. CORRECTION FOR WEATHER EVENT...ORIGINALLY WENT OUT UNDER A FLASH FLOOD. |
| 23:28 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | N Monticello | Wright, MN | NEAR SHERBORNE/WRIGHT BORDER ON HWY 95 NON ROTATING WALL CLOUD. |
| 23:30 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Henderson | Sibley, MN | |
| 23:37 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Glencoe | Mcleod, MN | TREE FELL ON CAR |
| 23:38 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Brownton | Mcleod, MN | HWY 15 AND HWY 212 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2010 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 17, 2010
73 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 17 | 10:35 AM MDT | EF1 | Adams, ND | 0.6 | 20 | $25,000 | ||
| June 17 | 2:31 PM CDT | EF0 | Burke, ND | 3.5 | 25 | |||
| June 17 | 2:55 PM CDT | EF0 | Stutsman, ND | 2.8 | 25 | |||
| June 17 | 3:28 PM CDT | EF0 | Norman, MN | 1.0 | 25 | |||
| June 17 | 3:38 PM CDT | EF0 | Steele, ND | 4.3 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 3:43 PM CDT | EF4 | Deer Creek tornado, MN | 39.6 | 2,288 | 1 | 5 | |
| June 17 | 3:44 PM CDT | EF0 | Stutsman, ND | 0.4 | 25 | |||
| June 17 | 3:49 PM CDT | EF4 | Mayville–Thompson tornado, ND | 17.0 | 150 | 1 | ||
| June 17 | 3:55 PM CDT | EF0 | Otter Tail, MN | 0.2 | 15 | |||
| June 17 | 4:00 PM CDT | EF0 | Mahnomen, MN | 6.0 | 40 | |||
| June 17 | 4:01 PM CDT | EF1 | Barnes, ND | 1.0 | 100 | |||
| June 17 | 4:05 PM CDT | EF0 | Barnes, ND | 0.2 | 15 | |||
| June 17 | 4:27 PM CDT | EF0 | Eddy, ND | 1.2 | 15 | |||
| June 17 | 4:28 PM CDT | EF2 | Steele, ND | 7.0 | 75 | |||
| June 17 | 4:30 PM CDT | EF1 | Steele, ND | 7.0 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 4:31 PM CDT | EF2 | Grand Forks, ND | 7.0 | 100 | |||
| June 17 | 4:32 PM CDT | EF1 | Clearwater, MN | 1.0 | 40 | |||
| June 17 | 4:40 PM CDT | EF2 | Steele, ND | 3.0 | 75 | |||
| June 17 | 4:41 PM CDT | EF1 | Clearwater, MN | 3.0 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 4:47 PM CDT | EF1 | Grand Forks, ND | 10.0 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 4:48 PM CDT | EF1 | Otter Tail, MN | 1.5 | 40 | |||
| June 17 | 4:59 PM CDT | EF4 | Wadena tornado, MN | 10.0 | 1,936 | 20 | ||
| June 17 | 5:02 PM CDT | EF0 | Steele, ND | 3.0 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 5:05 PM CDT | EF0 | Faribault, MN | 2.6 | 75 | |||
| June 17 | 5:10 PM CDT | EF1 | Pennington, MN | 2.0 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 5:11 PM CDT | EF0 | Kossuth, IA | 0.7 | 20 | |||
| June 17 | 5:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Nelson, ND | 3.0 | 25 | |||
| June 17 | 5:17 PM CDT | EF1 | Hubbard, MN | 6.0 | 80 | |||
| June 17 | 5:21 PM CDT | EF1 | Walsh, ND to MN | 5.0 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 5:22 PM CDT | EF0 | Grand Forks, ND | 1.0 | 25 | |||
| June 17 | 5:24 PM CDT | EF0 | Kossuth, IA | 0.7 | 20 | |||
| June 17 | 5:29 PM CDT | EF1 | Clearwater, MN | 1.0 | 40 | |||
| June 17 | 5:30 PM CDT | EF0 | Wadena, MN | 14.8 | 200 | $2,000 | ||
| June 17 | 5:30 PM CDT | EF0 | Grand Forks, ND | 8.0 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 5:35 PM CDT | EF1 | Grand Forks, ND | 4.0 | 75 | |||
| June 17 | 5:37 PM CDT | EF0 | Grand Forks, ND | 2.0 | 25 | |||
| June 17 | 5:37 PM CDT | EF0 | Blue Earth, MN | 3.0 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 5:40 PM CDT | EF0 | Faribault, MN | 1.7 | 20 | |||
| June 17 | 5:41 PM CDT | EF1 | Walsh, ND | 2.0 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 5:44 PM CDT | EF1 | Roseau, MN | 4.0 | 40 | |||
| June 17 | 5:48 PM CDT | EF0 | Hubbard, MN | 4.0 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 5:49 PM CDT | EF0 | Hubbard, MN | 1.0 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 5:50 PM CDT | EF1 | Polk, MN | 7.0 | 150 | |||
| June 17 | 5:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Sherburne, MN | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| June 17 | 5:56 PM CDT | EF0 | Sherburne, MN | 2.5 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 6:00 PM CDT | EF1 | Polk, MN | 3.0 | 150 | |||
| June 17 | 6:00 PM CDT | EF1 | Wright, MN | 5.1 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 6:05 PM CDT | EF0 | Winnebago, IA | 1.5 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 6:05 PM CDT | EF0 | Faribault, MN | 0.9 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 6:06 PM CDT | EF0 | Polk, MN | 2.0 | 75 | |||
| June 17 | 6:10 PM CDT | EF0 | Faribault, MN | 0.4 | 30 | |||
| June 17 | 6:13 PM CDT | EF2 | Faribault, MN | 1.5 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 6:15 PM CDT | EF3 | Polk, MN | 15.0 | 150 | 1 | 2 | |
| June 17 | 6:16 PM CDT | EF1 | Red Lake, MN | 2.0 | 50 | 1 | ||
| June 17 | 6:16 PM CDT | EF2 | Faribault, MN | 2.5 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 6:23 PM CDT | EF0 | Faribault, MN | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 6:26 PM CDT | EF1 | Marshall, MN | 7.0 | 200 | |||
| June 17 | 6:28 PM CDT | EF1 | Faribault, MN | 0.6 | 50 | |||
| June 17 | 6:33 PM CDT | EF4 | Conger–Albert Lea tornado, MN | 16.9 | 1,760 | 1 | 14 | |
| June 17 | 6:55 PM CDT | EF1 | Freeborn, MN | 1.1 | 100 |
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.