EF0 tornado, Biscay to Sherman, Minnesota, July 28, 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

July 28, 2019

Touchdown

3:32 PM CDT (20:32 UTC)

Lifted

3:33 PM CDT (20:33 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

McLeod County

Touchdown point

44.855, -94.180

Lift-off point

44.859, -94.183

Record number

1907281432-01

24 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 110 mph.

• south edge of corn flattened
• north edge of corn flattened

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

Several severe storms developed in a highly sheared environment. Instability was adequate enough to cause a few of the storms to become tornadic near Silver Lake, and around Forest Lake, and Scandia during the afternoon of Sunday, July 28th. ||A storm survey found a total of six tornadoes. These surveys indicated an EF1 tornado formed near Silver Lake, and another between Forest Lake, north of Scandia, and into southern Chicago County. ||The worst damage occurred along Bone Lake near Scandia, where very large trees were uprooted or blown down. Some of the trees caused significant damage to lake homes on Bone Lake.

An EF0 tornado developed 3 miles southwest of Biscay and tracked northeast to just north of Biscay, Minnesota before dissipating. Corn was flattened along the path and some trees were uprooted near Minnesota Highway 22, and 150th Street. The maximum wind speed was estimated at 85 mph.

A brief EF0 tornado spun up southeast of Silver Lake and produced a little damage to some trees.

An EF1 tornado spun up southeast of Silver Lake and quickly became 1/4 mile wide (440 yards), as it tracked northeast across Highway 7 before dissipating 3 miles east-northeast of Silver Lake. Corn was flattened, a few outbuildings were destroyed, and many trees were damaged.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

13 minutes of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:19 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:52 UTC and running to 23:20 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 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.

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:32 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 2019 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

8 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.