EF0 tornado, Hagen, Minnesota, June 17, 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 17, 2012

Touchdown

8:43 PM CDT (01:43 UTC)

Lifted

8:45 PM CDT (01:45 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Chippewa County

Touchdown point

45.077, -95.746

Lift-off point

45.078, -95.740

Record number

1206171943-01

A large cluster of thunderstorms that formed across the eastern Dakotas, moved eastward and developed a long-lived bow echo that moved across southern Minnesota during the evening of Sunday June 17th. Numerous trees, power lines, barns and roofs were damaged or destroyed across a large portion in southern Minnesota.||Winds were clocked at 78 mph at the Appleton Airport, and knocked down power lines, tore open a machine shed on a farm place north of Appleton, and twisted the foundation for a grain dryer, snapping the liquid propane line to it. Five power poles along Minnesota Highway 7 just north of Appleton were toppled, knocking out power to rural areas and about �� of Appleton for two to three hours.||In Lac Qui Parle County, the winds tore metal roofing off a portion of a building in Madison, and snapped small tree branches in town.||In eastern Kandiyohi County, the roof of a shed at the Central Lakes Cooperative just outside of Atwater was torn off and a turkey barn on Highway 12 was damaged. Highway crews used snowplows to move numerous branches from State Highway 12 in Atwater, and power was affected in five substations in the region, particularly the one in Atwater.||The western and northwestern portions of Meeker County were hit hard with severe damage around Grove City, where at least 14 buildings were damaged, including six turkey barns, sheds, grain bins and one residence with extensive roof damage. The Meeker Cooperative said more than 30 power poles were lost and numerous lines downed because of wind and falling trees. The athletic fields at the High School in Grove City were damaged, with football bleachers flipped over onto the field and a dugout damaged on the baseball field. A section of State Highway 4 in Meeker County was shut down due to debris on the road.||Golf ball sized hail and some two inches in diameter were reported in Le Sueur, Rice and Goodhue counties but no major damage was reported.||In addition to the severe winds and hail, very heavy rainfall occurred, especially in the communities of Willmar, Cannon Falls, and Jordan. All three areas reported rainfall of more than 3 inches, with led to flooding. Transportation officials closed Highway 20 near Cannon Falls and Highway 50 near Miesville Monday morning due to flooding. The flooding damaged roads, bridges, utilities, buildings and recreation areas. Preliminary damage assessments revealed more than 5 million dollars in costs and damages.||Wind storms and flooding during the period June 14-21 led to Dakota, Goodhue, Kandiyohi, Meeker, Rice and Sibley counties being among those Minnesota counties designated disaster areas by presidential declaration on July 6, 2012.

A small shed and a playhouse were blown into a corn field. About two dozen trees were broken or toppled.

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

18 minutes of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:25 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:47 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:53 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.

Montevideo (MVE), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 173 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:44 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

5 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.