EF1 tornado, Darling to Camp Ripley Jct, Minnesota, September 7, 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

September 7, 2016

Touchdown

10:28 PM CDT (03:28 UTC)

Lifted

10:37 PM CDT (03:37 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

7.3 miles (11.7 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.0 million

County

Morrison County

Touchdown point

46.062, -94.452

Lift-off point

46.105, -94.313

Record number

1609072128-01

18 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 102 mph.

• This building, which only had very minor damage, was identical to the other building to its south that was destroyed. The destroyed building had its doors closed.
• Looking east at a roof that had been blown 300 feet into solar panels.
• looking e. The garage doors had been closed. The roof landed in the array of solar panels.
• looking sw. trees downed toward the sw and se. this is on the northern edge of the damage

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

The evening of Wednesday, September 7th, an area of showers, with embedded thunderstorms developed across western Minnesota, and moved northeast across central Minnesota. Effective shear and ample instability was able to produce a tornado that hit Morrison County, including Camp Ripley. No one was injured during this event.

A NWS storm survey concluded that an EF1 tornado with estimated winds of 90 mph, damaged several buildings and uprooted trees in Camp Ripley. One concrete block apartment style living quarters had its roof completely removed, and another one had its roof partially removed. Another high-roof garage building was mostly destroyed, with debris landing in an array of solar panels, which sustained significant damage. One car was lofted and deposited about 50 feet away. The tornado started just southeast of Randall and moved east, damaging a resort and a number of lake homes on the northwest side of Green Prairie Fish Lake. It then turned northeast and hit Camp Ripley. The core of the tornado tracked just north of the KRYM AWOS at the Camp Ripley airfield, which measured a peak gust of 56 knots. Specific wind measurements (in knots) were 14016G24 at 0333Z, 19034G56 at 0334Z, 24048G56 at 0335Z, 28048G56 at 0336Z, 33036G56 at 0337Z, and 30018G56 at 0338Z. The tornado intensified shortly thereafter, taking the roof off the buildings, lofting a car, and bending six metal light poles in half.

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.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 01:02 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.

Ray Miller Army Field (RYM), 2 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 151 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:28 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

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.