EF0 tornado, Belgrade to Greenwald, Minnesota, September 19, 2017

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

September 19, 2017

Touchdown

12:48 AM CDT (05:48 UTC)

Lifted

12:49 AM CDT (05:49 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.2 miles (1.9 km)

Path width

330 yards (302 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Stearns County

Touchdown point

45.453, -95.009

Lift-off point

45.459, -94.987

Record number

1709192348-01

56 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.

• downburst damage after tornado dissipated. Note damage pattern spread out after dissipation.
• Poles four feet deep into ground were pulled out as building was blown to the nne. Appears to be downburst damage after tornado dissipated. Note damage pattern spread out after dissipation.
• end of the significant downburst damage. Drone footage indicated the damage ended about here.
• few trees down from downburst associated with dissipated tornado.

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

A strong and potent upper level disturbance, combined with a cold front sweeping across the eastern Dakotas, fired a line of severe thunderstorms that moved eastward into western Minnesota toward midnight. This line of storms continued to progress east-northeast across southern and central Minnesota, which produced fast-moving tornadoes, severe measured wind gusts, and hail as large as tennis balls. This line slowly weakened as it moved into far eastern Minnesota, with general, non-severe thunderstorms as the line progressed into west central Wisconsin after 3 am.

A tornado knocked down several dozen trees, with some landing on cars and sheds. One tree landed on a mobile home. The tornado also destroyed a storage building (the building had been moved from another location and was still in the process of being made ready for business when the tornado came and blew it across the road).

A tornado touched down on the edge of a corn field and moved east-northeast, missing the city of Elrosa by less than a mile. However, it hit several farms, including one where several metal sheds were destroyed. The tornado also knocked down or uprooted many trees and also severely damaged crops, especially corn that was ready for harvest.

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 03:36 UTC and running to 07:27 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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.

Paynesville (PEX), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 131 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:48 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 2017 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

11 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.