Tornadoes · United States · Minnesota · 2019
EF0 tornado, Coin, Minnesota, September 21, 2019
This EF0 tornado ran 1.2 miles across Kanabec County on September 21, 2019, touching down at 5:01 PM CDT and reaching 80 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- September 21, 2019
- Touchdown
- 5:01 PM CDT (22:01 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:04 PM CDT (22:04 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 1.2 miles (2.0 km)
- Path width
- 80 yards (73 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Crop damage
- $10,000
- County
- Kanabec County
- Touchdown point
- 45.752, -93.311
- Lift-off point
- 45.762, -93.290
- Record number
- 1909211601-01
The damage survey
3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MPX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.
- Numerous large branches down 13 days later. Few trees still down. Damage to fences.
- Bean damage was on both sides of road. Much damage was to the se, but some damage showed a convergent pattern. A storm chaser measured 110 mph on the next road east of here, but that is not deemed a correct speed due to the lack of tree or crop damage where he was.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
Two storm chasers filmed a tornado in east central Minnesota, in Kanabec County. Earlier, a funnel cloud was documented northeast of St Cloud.
Two storm chasers documented a tornado that mostly crossed open fields. A NWS storm survey revealed damage to some bean fields as well as about two dozen trees uprooted or broken. No structural damage was noted.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:00 UTC | 21:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MPX |
| 21:06 UTC | 21:27 UTC | Tornado Warning | MPX |
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 forecast that day
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 20:00 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 air that afternoon
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.
Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 12:00Z
10.0 hours before the tornado, 104 km from the path. September 21, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 331 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -48 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1124 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 671 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 255 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 247 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.4
- Supercell composite
- 5.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.9 K/km
Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 00:00Z
2.0 hours after it, 104 km from the path. September 22, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1719 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -24 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3438 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1074 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 43 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 26 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 217 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 213 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.7
- Supercell composite
- 14.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.3 K/km
The radar
The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 103 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:03 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:26 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 5 S Foley | Benton, MN | NARROW FUNNEL THAT LASTED TWO MINUTES. |
| 21:36 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | 2 Ene Mcgrath | Aitkin, MN | TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of September 21, 2019
4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 21 | 4:48 PM CDT | Unrated | Chautauqua, KS | 0.5 | 25 | |||
| September 21 | 6:12 PM CDT | EF1 | Elk, KS | 1.2 | 75 | $5,000 | ||
| September 21 | 6:16 PM CDT | Unrated | Elk, KS | 0.5 | 25 | |||
| September 21 | 12:53 AM CDT | Unrated | Polk, IA | 1.6 | 25 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.