EF0 tornado, Fairmont Arpt, Minnesota, June 25, 2010

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

June 25, 2010

Touchdown

8:38 PM CDT (01:38 UTC)

Lifted

8:40 PM CDT (01:40 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Martin County

Touchdown point

43.625, -94.449

Lift-off point

43.620, -94.445

Record number

1006251938-01

During the morning of Friday June 25th, a small complex of thunderstorms developed across west-central Minnesota, and quickly moved eastward across southern Minnesota. Isolated severe weather occurred with these storms in west-central Minnesota during the morning hours. ||During the afternoon, a larger complex of storms developed across western Minnesota, and moved quickly across portions of central and southern Minnesota during the evening. Damage was extensive as several bow echoes, supercells, and squall lines raced across the area. There were numerous reports of structural damage to farms and homesteads, very large hail, and very large trees blown down. Softball to baseball size hail was reported near New Ulm, Minnesota, with several reports of wind damage throughout southern, and east-central Minnesota. ||Several significant tornadoes occurred in portions of south central Minnesota during the late afternoon, and early evening hours. ||Two separate severe storms moved across the Twin Cities area, one produced minor damage with hail in the late afternoon, but the second that occurred in the early evening caused more straight-line wind damage throughout the area, along with flash flooding.

About a dozen trees were broken or snapped, and shingles were taken off the roof of a barn. Viewed by multiple eyewitnesses.

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

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 20:37 UTC and running to 03:02 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 01:01 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.

Fairmont Municipal (FRM), 4 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 153 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:40 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

21 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.