Unrated tornado, Northrop, Minnesota, May 17, 2026

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.

Rating, as surveyed

Unrated, preliminary

Date

May 17, 2026

Touchdown

7:12 PM CDT (00:12 UTC)

Lifted

7:13 PM CDT (00:13 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

0 yards (0 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Martin County

Touchdown point

43.707, -94.492

Lift-off point

43.711, -94.488

Surveyed by

NWS MPX

The office's name for it

NW Fairmont

Survey last edited

June 18, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

Brief rope tornado along Co Hwy 39 north of I-90. Confirmed by law enforcement and video via storm chaser.

Written by NWS MPX in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

A line of storms developed along a cold front Sunday afternoon, stretching from South Dakota all the way down through central Kansas. As the storms progressed eastward through the evening, they moved into a favorable environment for tornado and severe wind development. Several tornadoes were observed across northeast Iowa, southeast South Dakota, and extreme southern Minnesota. There were two tornadoes in Freeborn County and one tornado in Martin County.||In addition to the tornadoes, there were reports of wind damage across southern MN. Minor structural damage and scattered tree damage suggest wind speeds around 60 to 75 mph were likely tied to the thunderstorms.

This short, rope tornado was confirmed by law enforcement and a trained spotter. The tornado briefly touched down between Fairmont and Northrup, north of mile marker 99 along I-90. It crossed open fields and appeared to not hit any damage indicators.

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 00:12 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:12 UTC and running to 03:35 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, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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.

Fairmont Municipal (FRM), 9 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 147 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:14 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 2026 tornado in MinnesotaEvery tornado in Minnesota since 1950Warnings in force in Minnesota nowThe forecast where you are

47 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.