EF0 tornado, Bernadotte to Norseland, Minnesota, September 4, 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

September 4, 2025

Touchdown

6:45 PM CDT (23:45 UTC)

Lifted

6:46 PM CDT (23:46 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Nicollet County

Touchdown point

44.426, -94.070

Lift-off point

44.430, -94.051

Record number

2509041745-01

16 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. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

• Crop damage. Photo by the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Office. Damage was sporadic and no path was evident.
• Crop damage. Photo by the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Office.
• Crop damage. Photo by the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Office. Damage was sporadic and no path was evident.
• Photo by the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Office.

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

On the evening of September 4, a broken line of thunderstorms developed and produced gusty winds across western Minnesota. The strongest gust was 62 mph at the Granite Falls airport. ||As the storms moved east, the produced two weak tornadoes. These tornadoes caused mainly crop damage, but there was also some damage to a couple groves of trees, and some roof damage to a hog barn. The tornadoes were both rated EF0, with peak winds of 70 to 80 mph.

Satellite and drone imagery confirmed a brief tornado in a cornfield southeast of Lafayette MN. It traveled east for 3.5 miles and damaged the roof of a hog barn and produced crop damage along its path. The tornado was rated EF0.

A tornado touched down in a field and hit a farmstead, knocking down and breaking multiple trees across the property. The time was estimated from radar.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:45 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:59 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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.

Mankato (MKT), 26 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 61 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:41 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

4 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.