EF0 tornado, Pleasant Lake to Waite Park, Minnesota, July 1, 2011

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

July 1, 2011

Touchdown

6:23 PM CDT (23:23 UTC)

Lifted

6:26 PM CDT (23:26 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.3 miles (3.8 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Stearns County

Touchdown point

45.523, -94.267

Lift-off point

45.548, -94.235

Record number

1107011723-01

A very hot and humid day occurred across southern Minnesota, and western Wisconsin Friday, July 1st. A frontal boundary held across the southwest part of the state, then northeast across east central Minnesota, and into portions of west central and northern Wisconsin. ||During the afternoon, a large thunderstorm complex developed across southeast South Dakota, along this frontal boundary and moved into far southwest Minnesota. Several long duration supercells and bow echoes occurred along a path from the southwest, to the northeast across southern Minnesota, and into west central Wisconsin. ||Several of the storms developed tornadoes near Redwood Falls, and again around St. Cloud, Minnesota. In addition to the tornadoes, severe straight line winds occurred. Plus, the development of the rear inflow notch, allowed for the strong winds to continue beyond the main bow echo across many areas of southern Minnesota. ||Widespread damage occurred with this system along with hundreds of large trees blown down and structural damage to homes and barns. Widespread reports of hail with each storm, along with a few reports of baseball and softball size hail.||Several communities lost power with over 90,000 reported outages throughout southern and central Minnesota.

An EF-0 tornado touched down just northeast of the intersection of Interstate 94 and Highway 23. It moved northeast and dissipated in Waite Park, about 1.5 miles west of the intersection of Highway 15 and 23. Maximum winds were 65 mph with the greatest width of 30 yards. The damage was confined to uprooted or blown down trees along its path.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:20 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:10 UTC and running to 01:51 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:45 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), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:22 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 2011 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.