Tornadoes · United States · Montana · 2006
F1 tornado, Cutbank, Montana, June 13, 2006
This F1 tornado ran 10.0 miles across Glacier County on June 13, 2006, touching down at 8:43 PM MDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 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.
F3158 to 206 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- F1
- Date
- June 13, 2006
- Touchdown
- 8:43 PM MDT (02:43 UTC)
- Path length
- 10.0 miles (16.1 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Glacier County
- Touchdown point
- 48.630, -112.650
- Lift-off point
- 48.630, -112.650
- Record number
- 632
What the Weather Service recorded
Severe thunderstorms occurred along the Northern Rocky Mountain Front during the evening hours of the 13th. Reports include: 2 inch diameter hail at Heart Butte 10E, 1.75 inch diameter hail at Fairfield 6N, 1 inch diameter hail at Babb, .88 inch diameter hail at Browning 15SW and .75 inch diameter hail at Two Medicine.A tornado was reported by law enforcement and photgraphed by the public 15 miles west of Cut Bank. The tornado remained generally over rural areas and caused no injuries. The tornado, and associated hail, did cause structural damage to corrals, barns and out buildings. A small trailer home was also destroyed along with its contents. Several roads were blocked for a few hours as crews removed fallen trees. Overall damage estimates are unknown.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
3 minutes of warning. NWS TFX issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:40 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:15 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01:17 UTC | 02:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TFX |
| 02:09 UTC | 03:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TFX |
| 02:40 UTC | 03:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | TFX |
| 03:15 UTC | 04:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TFX |
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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:02 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 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.
Great_falls, MT (KTFX), 00:00Z
2.7 hours before the tornado, 200 km from the path. June 14, 2006.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1571 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -89 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2086 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1492 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 6 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -36 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 51 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- -0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.4 K/km
Great_falls, MT (KTFX), 12:00Z
9.3 hours after it, 200 km from the path. June 14, 2006.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -92778 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2336 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 38 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 37 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 104 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.5 K/km
The radar
The Great Falls radar (KTFX), 161 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:41 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01:15 UTC | HAIL 0.5 | Browning | Glacier, MT | |
| 01:37 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 15 Sw Browning | Glacier, MT | NICKEL SIZE HAIL STARTING TO COVER THE GROUND. |
| 01:45 UTC | TORNADO | 12 Sw Cut Bank | Glacier, MT | POSSIBLE TORNADO...REPORTED BY PUBLIC. |
| 02:43 UTC | TORNADO | 15 W Cut Bank | Glacier, MT | NUMEROUS REPORTS OF A TORNADO WEST OF CUT BANK...AND EAST OF BROWNING. |
| 03:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 20 Se Browning | Glacier, MT | NUMEROUS TREES DOWN...HAIL 4 TO 5 INCHES DEEP. LOCATION IS NEAR OLD AGENCY. |
| 03:20 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Two Medicine | Glacier, MT | PUBLIC REPORT OF LARGE HAIL...TRAFFIC BEING STOPPED. |
| 03:30 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 34 Nw Cut Bank | Glacier, MT | FUNNEL CLOUD SPOTTED JUST WEST OF PORT OF ENTRY AT DEL BONITA. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in MontanaEvery tornado in Montana since 1950Warnings in force in Montana nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 13, 2006
12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 13 | 3:20 AM EDT | F0 | Orange, FL | 0.1 | 20 | $10,000 | ||
| June 13 | 4:00 AM EDT | F0 | Duval, FL | 1.0 | 50 | |||
| June 13 | 4:30 AM EDT | F0 | Duval, FL | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 13 | 6:00 AM EDT | F0 | Camden, GA | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 13 | 1:15 PM EDT | F1 | Chatham, GA | 0.5 | 175 | $500,000 | ||
| June 13 | 2:30 PM EDT | F0 | Beaufort, SC | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| June 13 | 12:55 PM PDT | F0 | Harney, OR | 1.0 | 10 | |||
| June 13 | 4:37 PM EDT | F0 | Effingham, GA | 0.5 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| June 13 | 6:05 PM EDT | F0 | Charleston, SC | 1.0 | 30 | $3,000 | ||
| June 13 | 7:50 PM EDT | F0 | Charleston, SC | 1.5 | 30 | $1,000 | ||
| June 13 | 12:10 AM EDT | F0 | Charleston, SC | 0.2 | 100 | $10,000 | ||
| June 13 | 12:34 AM EDT | F0 | Berkeley, SC | 0.7 | 150 | 1 | $20,000 |
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.