EF2 tornado, Blooming Prairie to Hayfield, Minnesota, June 17, 2010

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 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

June 17, 2010

Touchdown

8:25 PM CDT (01:25 UTC)

Lifted

8:40 PM CDT (01:40 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

6.6 miles (10.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$30,000

Counties

Steele and Dodge counties

Touchdown point

43.895, -93.090

Lift-off point

43.925, -92.966

Record number

1006171925-01

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.

Severe thunderstorms developed during the evening of June 17th along a warm front that was lifting north through southern Minnesota and northeast Iowa. These severe thunderstorms produced the first tornadoes of 2010 for southeast Minnesota with three confirmed tornadoes. Two of these occurred in rural portions of Dodge County while the third moved through the northwest side of Rochester (Olmsted County). The tornadoes in Dodge County were rated EF0 and EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale while the tornado in Rochester was rated EF1. The tornado in Rochester was the first to occur within the city limits since August 1995. As the storms progressed east, they became prolific wind producers with wind gusts of 60 to 80 mph across Olmsted and Winona Counties. Numerous buildings were damaged or destroyed with most of this occurring from Rochester east through the Winona area (Winona County). Federal Disaster Declarations for public assistance were designated for Olmsted and Houston Counties in southeast Minnesota.

This tornado developed just north of the Steele/Freeborn County line, shortly after the dissipation in Freeborn County of the Newry tornado. This new tornado moved northeast, and initially, occasional trees were broken. Damage intensified somewhat when it hit a farm on State Highway 30 just west of Blooming Prairie. The tornado continued moving northeast, decimating crops. Some bean fields were scoured in spots. It intensified significantly to EF-3 2.5 miles northwest of Blooming Prairie, where a house was leveled, trees were snapped, and large portions of bark were removed. A pickup truck was lofted about 50 feet into the basement of the house. Several other houses sustained minor damage. The tornado dissipated just west of Highway 218 and 123rd Street. Video recorded by law enforcement and chasers.

This EF-2 tornado touched down and tracked east-northeast, and soon crossed the path of the Blooming Prairie EF-3 that had moved north-northeast about 10 minutes earlier. A manufactured home was obliterated by the EF-2. A woman inside the home was blown about 20 feet, but was found under debris, rescued by law enforcement, and survived. The tornado continued moving east-northeast, and several outbuildings were destroyed, along with many broken trees. The tornado continued into Dodge County.

This was the second tornado of the night to hit Dodge County. It formed over Steele County where it was rated an EF2, and then moved into Dodge County affecting rural areas of the county northeast of Blooming Prairie. Most of the damage occurred near County Roads 3 and 4 where roofs were partially torn off buildings and trees were blown down.

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:11 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:54 UTC and running to 02:00 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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:53 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 Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 113 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:23 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 2010 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

73 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 74 of them

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.