Tornadoes · United States · Minnesota · 2011
EF0 tornado, Lexington to Andover, Minnesota, June 21, 2011
From Lexington to Andover, this EF0 tornado ran 6.1 miles across Anoka County on June 21, 2011, touching down at 3:12 PM CDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $500,000 of property damage.
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 21, 2011
- Touchdown
- 3:12 PM CDT (20:12 UTC)
- Lifted
- 3:25 PM CDT (20:25 UTC)
- On the ground
- 13 minutes
- Path length
- 6.1 miles (9.9 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $500,000
- County
- Anoka County
- Touchdown point
- 45.136, -93.236
- Lift-off point
- 45.204, -93.317
- Record number
- 1106211412-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Strong to severe thunderstorms developed across eastern Minnesota during the early afternoon of Tuesday, June 21st. Modest instability and a highly sheared environment, led to several funnel cloud reports across southern Minnesota. One of these funnel clouds touched down on the north side of the metro and caused damage.
An EF-0 tornado touched down near the intersection of Highway 10 and Central Avenue in Blaine, then traveled approximately 6.1 miles northwest to one half mile northwest of the intersection of County Highway 14, and Hanson Boulevard in Coon Rapids. It had maximum wind speeds of 70 to 80 mph. Most of the damage was associated with trees and power lines blown down along the path length. Some damage occurred when trees fell on homes.
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 19:15 UTC and running to 02:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:15 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | MPX |
| 20:13 UTC | 20:45 UTC | Tornado 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:57 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
8.2 hours before the tornado, 44 km from the path. June 21, 2011.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -77179 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 12 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 629 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 49 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 316 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 260 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.1 K/km
Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 00:00Z
3.8 hours after it, 44 km from the path. June 22, 2011.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 120 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -6 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1200 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1101 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 86 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 75 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.1 K/km
The radar
The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 42 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:12 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:12 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Sw Blaine | Anoka, MN | AN NWS STORM DAMAGE SURVEY TEAM DETERMINED AN EF-0 TORNADO TRACKED FROM NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF U.S. HIGHWAY 10 AND CENTRAL AVENUE IN BLAINE...TO THE NORTHWEST FOR APPROXIMATELY FIVE AND A HALF MILES...ENDING ONE HALF M |
| 20:15 UTC | TORNADO | Coon Rapids | Anoka, MN | TORNADO REPORTED NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF HANSON AND MAIN ST. TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN IN COON RAPIDS. |
| 20:17 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Blaine | Anoka, MN | AT HWY 65 AND HWY 10. |
| 20:29 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Andover | Anoka, MN | AT THE INTERSECTION OF BUNKER LAKE AND HANSON BLVD. |
| 20:32 UTC | TORNADO | Coon Rapids | Anoka, MN | TORNADO REPORTED NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF HANSON AND MAINE. |
| 21:08 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 2 | 2 S Hasty | Wright, MN | REPORTED TO HAVE FALLEN IN 12 MINUTES. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2011 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 21, 2011
9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 21 | 1:15 AM CDT | EF0 | Tama, IA | 0.8 | 30 | $75,000 | ||
| June 21 | 3:21 PM CDT | EF1 | Fond du Lac, WI | 2.6 | 150 | $30,000 | ||
| June 21 | 3:31 PM CDT | EF1 | Green Lake, WI | 2.2 | 150 | $5,000 | ||
| June 21 | 3:36 PM CDT | EF1 | Fond du Lac, WI | 0.9 | 100 | $15,000 | ||
| June 21 | 3:38 PM CDT | EF1 | Green Lake, WI | 1.6 | 100 | $2,000 | ||
| June 21 | 3:55 PM CDT | EF0 | Shelby, TX | 3.9 | 75 | |||
| June 21 | 5:00 PM CDT | EF0 | Shelby, TX | 1.6 | 75 | |||
| June 21 | 8:31 PM CDT | EF1 | DuPage, IL | 2.1 | 200 | $500,000 | ||
| June 21 | 8:48 PM CDT | EF1 | Cook, IL | 2.4 | 200 | $50,000 |
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.