EF1 tornado, Genola to Lastrup, Minnesota, August 29, 2024

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

August 29, 2024

Touchdown

3:35 PM CDT (20:35 UTC)

Lifted

3:43 PM CDT (20:43 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

7.5 miles (12.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Morrison County

Touchdown point

45.969, -94.168

Lift-off point

46.043, -94.055

Record number

2408291435-01

9 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 90 mph.

• Half of the roof was blown to the northeast into a field.
• Drone footage shows ground marks where a trampoline was dragged from northeast to southwest. A couple trees also indicated convergence.
• Several trees broken; a few evergreens uprooted. Two trees to the south indicated convergent wind.
• Broken trees and a few uprooted evergreens.

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

A well-defined cold front associated with a strong upper-level low produced widespread wind damage and a few tornadoes throughout central and eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin on August 29th, 2024. Four tornadoes occurred. There were also a number of downbursts, with some of the most significant downburst damage in Champlin, Anoka, and Cottage Grove.

The tornado hit several farms before moving into Lastrup and dissipating. It ripped most of the roof off of two barns west and northwest of Pierz, then continued northeast to Lastrup, where it knocked down or broke large limbs of dozens of trees and tore off half of the roof of an outbuilding. Drone video from the Sheriff's Office showed a convergent damage pattern in Lastrup, and the damage survey showed a convergent pattern at several locations before the tornado hit Lastrup.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:31 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:34 UTC and running to 21:47 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 19:54 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.

Little Falls (LXL), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 136 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 2024 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.