Unrated tornado, Avoca to Dovray, Minnesota, August 28, 2021

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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

August 28, 2021

Touchdown

5:53 PM CDT (22:53 UTC)

Lifted

5:56 PM CDT (22:56 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.2 miles (3.6 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Murray County

Touchdown point

44.062, -95.475

Lift-off point

44.094, -95.474

Record number

2108281653-01

An unstable warm sector with MUCAPE up to 2000-2500 J/kg developed during the afternoon between an advancing cold front across southeast South Dakota, and a gangly warm front extending into southwest Minnesota. An approaching weak impulse spurred rapid development of multiple rounds of storms near the warm front, initially discrete, with upscale growth into short bowing segments. Secondary development occurred during the evening along the cold front, which evolved into a slow-moving linear system with hail, wind, and heavy rainfall with shear vectors increasingly parallel to the boundary.

A brief tornado started around 3 miles north-northeast of Avoca near 101st St., one-quarter mile west of 220th Avenue. The tornado traveled north-northeast over open farmland for just under two miles with damage limited to crops, then lifted just southwest of the intersection of 121st Street and 225th Avenue. Based on Sentinel satellite imagery, the average path width was 20 yards.

Identified from Sentinel satellite imagery and confirmed by ground survey, a tornado spun up one-half mile southwest of Dovray just east of 250th Avenue. The tornado moved north over marsh and farmland, and caused damage to crops and cattails. The tornado dissipated one-half mile west of Dovray, just north of State Highway 30. The average path width was 20 yards.

Another brief tornado spun up 4 miles east-northeast of Dovray, around one-third mile southeast of the intersection of 151st Street and 290th Avenue. The tornado traveled north over open fields causing damage to crops, and dissipated just south of 171st Street, 5 miles northeast of Dovray. From Sentinel satellite imagery, the average path width was found to be 20 yards.

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

27 minutes of warning. NWS FSD issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:26 UTC, 27 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:44 UTC and running to 01:51 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:51 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 Sioux Falls radar (KFSD), 114 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:50 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 2021 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

16 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.