EF1 tornado, Rushford Vlg to Hart, Minnesota, September 4, 2018

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 4, 2018

Touchdown

9:05 PM CDT (02:05 UTC)

Lifted

9:12 PM CDT (02:12 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

5.1 miles (8.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$7,000

Counties

Winona and Fillmore counties

Touchdown point

43.844, -91.790

Lift-off point

43.909, -91.740

Record number

1809042005-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ARX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• Leaf and mud debris on house.
• Corn tilted from inflow. east side.
• Picture looking east. Track in the stand of trees with some trunks snapped.

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

An EF-1 tornado moved across rural portions of far northeast Fillmore County into southwest Winona County. The tornado started northwest of Rushford (Fillmore County) and was on the ground for about 5 minutes causing minor damage to a house and trees. Several rounds of thunderstorms moved across the area dumping heavy rain. The heavy caused street flooding to occur in Rochester (Olmsted County) with cars becoming trapped in the flood waters.

A NWS Storm Survey found that an EF-1 tornado started in far northern Fillmore County northwest of Rushford near the intersection of County Highway 27 and 431st Avenue. The tornado only produced some very minor damage before moving into Winona County.

A NWS Storm Survey found that an EF-1 tornado that started in Fillmore County, entered Winona County southwest of Hart near County Highway 25. The tornado then traveled northeast across rural areas before ending along State Highway 43 between Hart and Interstate 90. The tornado had an intermittent damage path with only some minor damage to one home and some trees.

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 tornado watch, issued at 20:35 UTC and running to 02:52 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:45 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.

The La Crosse radar (KARX), 46 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:05 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 2018 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

1 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.