EF1 tornado, Cannon City to Nerstrand, Minnesota, July 5, 2016

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

July 5, 2016

Touchdown

7:39 PM CDT (00:39 UTC)

Lifted

7:44 PM CDT (00:44 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.7 miles (5.9 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Rice County

Touchdown point

44.330, -93.200

Lift-off point

44.309, -93.132

Record number

1607051839-01

12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MPX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• Concentrated area of pine trees snapped.
• narrow area of damage in line with previous point
• Rating based on damage, and cofirmation via photo and CC plume.
• End of tornado track based on damage survey and radar.

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

The early afternoon of Tuesday, July 5th, two areas of thunderstorms developed across west central Minnesota and produced several large hail stones. These two storms moved southeast across central and southern Minnesota and produced a swath of damaging winds, large hail and a few tornadoes during the late afternoon and early evening. Crop specialists from the University of Minnesota Extension service indicated that corn and soybean yields had some damage in central Minnesota, especially around Willmar. Corn had broken or bruised stalks, along with dislodged roots and leaf loss from the wind and hail. ||The northern storm went from Alexandria, southeast to Paynesville, Buffalo and the northwest part of the Twin Cities metro area. Eventually this storm moved across most of the Twin Cities metro area, with the most damage from northern Hennepin, through Ramsey and southern Washington. ||The second storm followed a similar path from west central Minnesota, southeast to just north of the Minnesota River Valley, then across the southern part of the Twin Cities metro area. The two storms merged across southern Minnesota from near Faribault, northeast to Red Wing, and to near Eau Claire Wisconsin. This storm rapidly moved southeast and became a large bow echo that raced across southern Wisconsin, and northern Illinois by Wednesday morning. ||The northern storm produced several measured wind gusts in excess of 70 mph across Wright, Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington counties. The worst damage which a storm survey estimated winds near 80 mph, produced a six mile long damage path of downed transmission lines near St. Michaels and Rogers. As the storms moved into the western metro area, there were numerous reports of downed trees and power lines, with measured severe wind gusts at both Crystal and Flying Cloud airports. The downtown St. Paul airport also measured a severe wind gust as the storms moved into Ramsey and into Washington county. The Maple Grove hospital had structural damage to their building. Pavers from an upper roof blew off and penetrated a roof below. This caused rain to seep into patient rooms and to the 1st floor imaging and PCC. ||There were some issues related to flooded roads in the Minneapolis, St. Paul metropolitan area, but most of the flooded roads were concentrated in poor drainage where rain water had no place to go. ||The second and southern storm initially produced several large hail reports, up to 2 inches in diameter from Cosmos to Hutchinson. This storm began to bow out in the southwest suburbs of the Twin Cities near Jordon, Prior Lake and Burnsville and moved southeast. This storm produced two tornadoes, one east of Faribault, and another west of Goodhue.||During the height of the storm, Xcel Energy reported more than 138,000 customers without power.

A storm survey revealed an EF1 tornado developed just east of Cannon City, and tracked east-southeast for around 3.7 miles. Trees were uprooted and a branch completely impaled an outside wall of a home. Winds were estimated at 90 mph, with a duration of 5 minutes. No injuries were reported.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:10 UTC and running to 02:18 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 19:56 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.

Faribault Municipal (FBL), 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), 67 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:37 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 2016 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

9 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.