EF4 Wadena tornado, 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 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. 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF4

Date

June 17, 2010

Touchdown

4:59 PM CDT (21:59 UTC)

Lifted

5:16 PM CDT (22:16 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

10.0 miles (16.1 km)

Path width

1,936 yards (1770 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

20

Counties

Wadena and Otter Tail counties

Touchdown point

46.410, -95.180

Lift-off point

46.522, -95.026

Record number

1006171559-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FGF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Conditions were ripe by the afternoon of the 17th for a major severe weather outbreak. A surface low had moved into east central North Dakota with an occluded front extending to the southeast. Warm and humid air was in place ahead of the front, with a much drier airmass pushing in behind it. The 500mb low was located over northwest North Dakota with a nice southwest to northeast upper jet pushing into eastern North Dakota. Two lines of convection formed by late afternoon, one from Roseau County down toward Eastern Otter Tail County and the other over east central North Dakota. Nearly all the cells that formed took on a classic hook shape with rotation very evident on radar imagery. Multiple tornado warnings were issued before the event wound down by mid evening. The strongest tornadoes were determined to be EF4 tornadoes, two in west central Minnesota and one in northeast North Dakota.

This tornado touched down in Otter Tail County and tracked northeastward for about 2 miles before crossing into Wadena County just southwest of the Wadena city limits. The tornado developed rapidly into a multi-vortex wedge type tornado as it approached Wadena. The tornado continued in Wadena County another 8 miles and ended about 516 PM CDT. Otter Tail County received mainly extreme tree damage with peak winds estimated at 170 mph.

This multi-vortex wedge tornado began in Otter Tail County about 3 miles southwest of the city of Wadena at 459 PM CDT. It tracked for about 2 miles in Otter Tail County, then it continued for another 8 miles in Wadena County. The tornado ravaged the western half of the community of Wadena. Numerous homes were flattened to the ground and at least one was completely swept from its foundation and destroyed. Public and industrial buildings were wrecked, the fairgrounds were damaged, and headstones in the cemetery were overturned. School buses and vehicles were propelled through the air for hundreds of yards. The tornado hit on the day of the Wadena all-school reunion, so many additional people were in the area. Roughly 100 people were displaced from their homes. Peak winds were estimated at 170 mph.

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

64 minutes of warning. NWS FGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:55 UTC, 64 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:45 UTC and running to 00:13 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 0.10 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 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 Fargo/Grand Forks radar (KMVX), 206 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:57 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.