EF1 tornado, Ostrander to Spring Vly, Minnesota, April 12, 2022

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

April 12, 2022

Touchdown

11:08 PM CDT (04:08 UTC)

Lifted

11:11 PM CDT (04:11 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.3 miles (3.7 km)

Path width

180 yards (165 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$650,000

County

Fillmore County

Touchdown point

43.651, -92.421

Lift-off point

43.684, -92.412

Record number

2204122208-01

40 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ARX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 132 mph.

• A couple sustained injuries while sheltering in their basement from the storm.

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

Two rounds of severe storms moved across southeast Minnesota on April 12th. The first round occurred in the afternoon as storms producing large hail moved across the area. Quarter sized hail fell from north of Racine (Mower County) east to near Winona (Winona County). A second round of severe storms occurred in the evening. An EF2 tornado moved through Taopi (Mower County), where homes were destroyed or severely damaged, grain bins were destroyed, cars were tossed or rolled, and trees and power lines were downed. Two people sustained injuries while sheltering from the storm when they became trapped under debris. An EF1 tornado occurred just southwest of Spring Valley (Fillmore County), damaging several farm outbuildings and trees. Two EF0 tornadoes occurred southwest of Lewiston (Winona County), where the damage was mainly to trees and one farm. The Mower County Board of Commissioners ratified an emergency declaration for Taopi and a state of emergency was declared for Fillmore County.

An EF1 tornado formed southwest of Spring Valley and moved almost due north before dissipating west of Spring Valley. The tornado blew down a barn and damaged several other farm buildings along its path. Several new power poles along County Highway 1 were leaning after the storm.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS ARX issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:02 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:54 UTC and running to 05:00 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:01 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), 100 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:09 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 2022 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

27 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.