EF0 tornado, Warsaw to Moland, Minnesota, April 28, 2025

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

April 28, 2025

Touchdown

5:38 PM CDT (22:38 UTC)

Lifted

5:39 PM CDT (22:39 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Rice County

Touchdown point

44.223, -93.389

Lift-off point

44.227, -93.383

Record number

2504281638-01

14 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.

• Additional mature hardwoods snapped or uprooted. No foliage.
• A freezer trailer was moved "50 to 100 ft" into the back of the house. No damage to house.
• Two equipment sheds & an "shooting shack" completely removed from their slabs. No anchors.
• Numerous hardwood trees snapped and or uprooted

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

Strong to severe thunderstorms had developed across a surface cold front that moved east across Minnesota during the afternoon hours of April 28th. Increased southerly moisture transport from a +50kt low-level jet had reached as far north as the Twin Cities metro which helped destabilize the environment. A few supercells were able to develop and produce hail mainly quarter size to ping-pong ball size although the largest hail stone was golf ball size six miles south of Owatonna. ||This line of storms also produced two tornadoes in Rice and Goodhue Counties which causing heavy damage to several semi-and tanker trucks, collapsing building walls and a few farm outbuildings. Maximum estimated tornadic wind speeds were 110 mph.

A group of trees sustained damage and an outbuilding lost its roof and wall panels. The maximum estimated wind was 75 mph.

Significant damage occurred at a farm: metal building system walls collapsed with several failed anchors, several semi and tanker trailers were heavily damaged, there was total loss of a barn and several smaller outbuildings, and several snapped trees. Additional isolated tree damage and outbuilding damage occurred toward end of its path. The maximum estimated wind was 110 mph.

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

18 minutes of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:20 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:29 UTC and running to 01:40 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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.

Faribault Municipal (FBL), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:39 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 2025 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.