EF0 tornado, Bennettville, Minnesota, August 26, 2019

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

August 26, 2019

Touchdown

7:05 PM CDT (00:05 UTC)

Lifted

7:12 PM CDT (00:12 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

1.8 miles (2.9 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Aitkin County

Touchdown point

46.434, -93.779

Lift-off point

46.417, -93.750

Record number

1908261805-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DLH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 60 mph.

• The waterspout moved over the peninsula at this point and damaged boats and a dock along with minor tree damage.
• After crossing the peninsula, the waterspout moved almost due east across Church Camp Bay and onto shore. Boats and a dock were flipped along with tree damage near the dock. The waterspout changed direction to the southeast and then dissipated.

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

A few weak thunderstorms developed near Lake Mille Lacs the evening of the 26th ahead of a cold front. While the overall threat of severe storms was low, one of the storms did produce a waterspout over Farm Island Lake that did produce damage along the shore. This storm produced additional funnel clouds, but no other waterspouts or tornadoes were reported.

The waterspout developed over the northwestern arm of Farm Island Lake east of Johnson's Point and moved to the southeast, passing just offshore of the southwest tip of the point. It then turned a little more easterly and passed near or over the northern tip of First Island and over open water before moving over the southern part of Delicarlia Peninsula. Docks were damaged at this location along with a few boats flipped and tree damage. The waterspout then turned more easterly and moved across Church Camp Bay before reaching shore again, damaging another dock, flipping multiple boats and causing sporadic tree damage. It then turned a but more southeasterly and traveled through a grove of trees and dissipated before reaching US Highway 169.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:57 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.

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 2019 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.