Tornadoes · United States · Minnesota · 2025

Unrated tornado, Bombay, Minnesota, August 29, 2025

This Unrated tornado ran 0.4 miles across Goodhue County on August 29, 2025, touching down at 5:05 PM CDT and reaching 25 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
Unrated
Date
August 29, 2025
Touchdown
5:05 PM CDT (22:05 UTC)
Lifted
5:10 PM CDT (22:10 UTC)
On the ground
5 minutes
Path length
0.4 miles (0.6 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Goodhue County
Touchdown point
44.260, -92.886
Lift-off point
44.261, -92.878
Record number
2508291605-01

The damage survey

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MPX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU.

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

A stalled boundary was situated across Minnesota with a northwest to southeast orientation. With just enough instability and moisture, scattered storms developed along the boundary during the afternoon and lasted into the early evening. Despite there being limited low-level shear, interactions from storm outflows provided a favorable environment for brief, non-mesocyclonic, funnel clouds to form. ||Out of the several funnel clouds during the day, only one was verified touching down. This was near Kenyon and Wannamingo in Goodhue County.

A video from a trained spotter verified a brief landspout tornado over farm field south of MN60 east of Kenyon. No damage was observed. Location and time approximate based on radar and video.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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

10.1 hours before the tornado, 87 km from the path. August 29, 2025.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Minneapolis, MN at 12:00Z on 2025-08-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 120 joules per kilogram, CIN -76, lifted condensation level 939 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Minneapolis, MN at 12:00Z on 2025-08-29The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 87 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 19 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
120 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-76 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
939 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
87 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
106 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 00:00Z

1.9 hours after it, 87 km from the path. August 30, 2025.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Minneapolis, MN at 00:00Z on 2025-08-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 578 joules per kilogram, CIN -2, lifted condensation level 1030 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Minneapolis, MN at 00:00Z on 2025-08-30The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -13 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
578 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1629 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1030 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
3 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-13 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
69 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-0.0
Supercell composite
-0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:07 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
19:20 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD4 Sse MontgomeryLe Sueur, MNTrained spotter reports a brief funnel cloud near the intersection of MN-99 and 145th Ave in eastern Le Sueur county. Time matched to radar.
21:05 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD5 Ne MedfordRice, MNReported via HAM in Slack.
21:15 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD1 Ssw Dodge CenterDodge, MN
21:15 UTCFUNNEL CLOUDHigh ForestOlmsted, MN
21:58 UTCLANDSPOUT5 Ese KenyonGoodhue, MNBrief landspout tornado video captured over farm field south of MN60. No damage observed. Location and time approximate based on radar.
22:00 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD5 Sse KenyonGoodhue, MN

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2025 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

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.