EF0 tornado, Henderson Station to Belle Plaine, Minnesota, June 10, 2012

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 10, 2012

Touchdown

8:15 PM CDT (01:15 UTC)

Lifted

8:20 PM CDT (01:20 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.2 miles (3.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$255,000

Counties

Le Sueur and Scott counties

Touchdown point

44.537, -93.810

Lift-off point

44.561, -93.775

Record number

1206101915-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MPX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 74 mph.

• Grain bin collapsed and toppled.
• Garage roof blown off and thrown northeast.
• Garage roof debris ends here.

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

The afternoon of Sunday, June 10th, a line of thunderstorms developed along a cold front across western Minnesota, and quickly became severe as they moved to the east-northeast across central and southern Minnesota. Initially, large hail was the main hazard, but it evolved into severe downburst winds across eastern Minnesota as this line moved to the east. There was one confirmed report of a tornado in northern Le Sueur County and southern Scott County. ||One area that had significant damage was across southern Ramsay County near Highland Park where numerous trees and large limbs were blown down. Some of the blown down tree limbs caused damage to cars. Thousands of people lost electrical power as trees and power lines were toppled by severe thunderstorms that rattled through the southern metro area. Lightning from these thunderstorms across eastern Minnesota struck a home in Apple Valley, and a pole barn in Washington County.

An EF-0 tornado formed approximately 6.5 miles south of Belle Plaine...just south of the Le Sueur, Scott County line, and moved northeast into Scott County. Damage was associated with down trees, some shingles blown off, plus a chimney toppled at a house. Maximum width was 50 yards.

An EF-0 tornado continued from Le Sueur County, into Scott County and moved northeast for approximately 1.7 miles before dissipating 4.5 miles south-southeast of Belle Plaine. The tornado had a maximum width of 50 yards. A farm near Henderson sustained heavy damage, with a 60,000 bushel grain bin destroyed and at least one other damaged, plus a workshop roof was blown off, with rafters and support beams cracked in a storage shed.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:05 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:46 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), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:14 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 2012 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.