EF0 tornado, Kensington, Minnesota, June 19, 2014

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 19, 2014

Touchdown

4:16 PM CDT (21:16 UTC)

Lifted

4:22 PM CDT (21:22 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

3.6 miles (5.8 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Douglas County

Touchdown point

45.771, -95.713

Lift-off point

45.822, -95.698

Record number

1406191516-01

3 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.

• Tornado start. No damage survey conducted.
• Tornado end. No storm survey conducted.

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

A number of weak tornadoes and funnel clouds developed along a line of thunderstorms across west central Minnesota during the late afternoon of Thursday, June 19th. All tornadoes and funnel clouds were quite narrow, and some of them occurred simultaneously or nearly so. There was no significant damage nor any injuries.

Several trained spotters, including those with the Kensington Fire Department, watched a very narrow tornado move north-northeast, occasionally touching down about every 1/4 mile. It only moved across sloughs and fields. It dissipated when rain swept across the area near the intersection of State Highway 27 and County Road 1.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:15 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 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 General Thunderstorms Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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 Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 198 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:16 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 2014 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.