Tornadoes · United States · Minnesota · 2025
Unrated tornado, Burwell, Minnesota, May 15, 2025
This Unrated tornado ran 0.1 miles across Polk County on May 15, 2025, touching down at 5:09 PM CDT and reaching 10 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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- May 15, 2025
- Touchdown
- 5:09 PM CDT (22:09 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:10 PM CDT (22:10 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Polk County
- Touchdown point
- 47.787, -96.528
- Lift-off point
- 47.787, -96.528
- Record number
- 2505151609-01
The damage survey
1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FGF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU.
- 2 Videos of a dusty circulation with no funnel cloud moving across a 260th St SW.
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
Severe thunderstorms produced frequent severe wind gusts across portions of west central Minnesota, northwest Minnesota, and eastern North Dakota.
Polk county law enforcement reported a tornado. Two videos online showed a dusty circulation with no funnel cloud moving across a 260th St SW. No damage reported or seen via satellite.
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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:45 UTC | 21:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FGF |
| 21:25 UTC | 22:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FGF |
| 21:33 UTC | 22:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FGF |
| 22:17 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | FGF |
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 19:27 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.
International Fa, MN (KINL), 12:00Z
10.2 hours before the tornado, 255 km from the path. May 15, 2025.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 126 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -97 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 53 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 957 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 14 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 6 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 97 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 103 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
International Fa, MN (KINL), 00:00Z
1.8 hours after it, 255 km from the path. May 16, 2025.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 364 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -26 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 653 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1560 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 156 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 290 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 2.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.6 K/km
The radar
The Fargo/Grand Forks radar (KMVX), 66 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:06 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:54 UTC | TSTM WND GST 63 | 2 W Eldred | Polk, MN | Corrects previous tstm wnd gst report from 2 W Eldred. Mesonet station 211549 Eldred MN NDAWN. |
| 20:00 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 2 W Eldred | Polk, MN | Mesonet station 211549 Eldred MN NDAWN. |
| 20:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 7 Ene Euclid | Polk, MN | power outages as a result of trees on powerlines NW of Red Lake falls. |
| 20:56 UTC | TSTM WND GST 73 | 3 S Thief River Falls | Pennington, MN | AWOS station KTVF Thief River Falls AP MN. |
| 21:05 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Nnw Thief River Falls | Pennington, MN | Picture of a mangled road sign from social media. |
| 21:08 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 N Thief River Falls | Marshall, MN | Trees uprooted. |
| 22:09 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Ne Crookston | Polk, MN | Polk County Sheriffs Office relayed report from on duty deputy of tornado east of Crookston. Time and location estimated from radar. |
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
The other tornadoes of May 15, 2025
34 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 15 | 1:05 PM CDT | EF0 | Chippewa, MN | 4.0 | 25 | |||
| May 15 | 1:28 PM CDT | EF0 | Swift, MN | 0.5 | 40 | |||
| May 15 | 1:34 PM CDT | EF1 | Swift, MN | 2.7 | 50 | |||
| May 15 | 2:43 PM CDT | EF0 | Stearns, MN | 2.8 | 50 | |||
| May 15 | 3:08 PM CDT | Unrated | Cass, ND | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| May 15 | 3:26 PM CDT | EF2 | Saint Croix, WI | 3.9 | 120 | |||
| May 15 | 4:05 PM CDT | EF0 | Sauk, WI | 0.1 | 20 | $5,000 | ||
| May 15 | 4:28 PM CDT | Unrated | Pembina, ND | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| May 15 | 4:42 PM CDT | Unrated | Columbia, WI | 1.2 | 20 | |||
| May 15 | 4:47 PM CDT | EF1 | Clark, WI | 0.8 | 100 | |||
| May 15 | 4:55 PM CDT | EF0 | Clark, WI | 2.4 | 75 | $1,000 | ||
| May 15 | 5:08 PM CDT | EF1 | Clark, WI | 2.4 | 100 | $45,000 | ||
| May 15 | 5:21 PM CDT | EF2 | Clark, WI | 4.6 | 230 | $725,000 | ||
| May 15 | 5:32 PM CDT | EF1 | Dodge, WI | 6.6 | 100 | $135,000 | ||
| May 15 | 5:38 PM CDT | EF2 | Dodge, WI | 11.5 | 500 | 1 | $2.5 million | |
| May 15 | 5:41 PM CDT | EF0 | Marathon, WI | 2.5 | 65 | |||
| May 15 | 5:48 PM CDT | EF1 | Dodge, WI | 4.2 | 75 | $1.2 million | ||
| May 15 | 5:52 PM CDT | EF0 | Portage, WI | 5.2 | 45 | |||
| May 15 | 5:57 PM CDT | EF2 | Dodge, WI | 8.3 | 300 | $3.4 million | ||
| May 15 | 6:08 PM CDT | EF1 | Dodge, WI | 2.1 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| May 15 | 6:09 PM CDT | EF1 | Dodge, WI | 1.5 | 50 | $45,000 | ||
| May 15 | 7:22 PM EDT | EF0 | Dare, NC | 0.8 | 100 | |||
| May 15 | 10:24 PM EDT | EF0 | Ottawa, MI | 3.5 | 50 | |||
| May 15 | 10:28 PM EDT | EF1 | Allegan, MI | 5.4 | 175 | |||
| May 15 | 10:41 PM EDT | EF1 | Allegan, MI | 8.3 | 200 | |||
| May 15 | 10:50 PM EDT | EF1 | Barry, MI | 6.8 | 200 | |||
| May 15 | 10:51 PM EDT | EF1 | Kent, MI | 14.9 | 100 | |||
| May 15 | 10:59 PM EDT | EF0 | Kalamazoo, MI | 10.1 | 200 | |||
| May 15 | 11:11 PM EDT | EF0 | Calhoun, MI | 8.5 | 200 | |||
| May 15 | 11:25 PM EDT | EF1 | Eaton, MI | 15.7 | 250 | |||
| May 15 | 12:03 AM EDT | EF1 | Livingston, MI | 1.9 | 230 | |||
| May 15 | 12:05 AM EDT | EF0 | Saginaw, MI | 1.6 | 250 | $150,000 | ||
| May 15 | 12:11 AM EDT | EF0 | Saginaw, MI | 3.4 | 160 | |||
| May 15 | 12:35 AM EDT | EF0 | Genesee, MI | 1.2 | 100 |
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.