Tornadoes · United States · Montana · 2008

EF0 tornado, Kalispell, Montana, April 9, 2008

This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Flathead County on April 9, 2008, touching down at 5:45 PM MDT 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
April 9, 2008
Touchdown
5:45 PM MDT (23:45 UTC)
Lifted
6:00 PM MDT (00:00 UTC)
On the ground
15 minutes
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Flathead County
Touchdown point
48.220, -114.342
Lift-off point
48.220, -114.342
Record number
0804091745-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Cool upper level trough triggered two land spouts near the Kalispell area that lasted for around 10 minutes.

Public reported sighting of land spout to news media at around 600 PM MDT. Pictures were taken by three different residents in the area confirming location of land spout touch down between 3 Mile Drive and 4 Mile Drive near Kalispell. A possible secondary funnel occurred farther to the northwest. The Land Spout started from a cumulus cloud around 545 PM, touched down at 550 PM and then dissipated shortly after 600 PM MDT. No damage was reported.

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 20:05 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.

Spokane, WA (KOTX), 12:00Z

11.8 hours before the tornado, 164 km from the path. April 9, 2008.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Spokane, WA at 12:00Z on 2008-04-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -109038, lifted condensation level 733 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°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, Spokane, WA at 12:00Z on 2008-04-09The 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 -22 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 23 knots.1939Sfc1 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-109038 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
733 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-22 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
40 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Spokane, WA (KOTX), 00:00Z

0.2 hours after it, 164 km from the path. April 10, 2008.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Spokane, WA at 00:00Z on 2008-04-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1 joules per kilogram, CIN -47, lifted condensation level 1971 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°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, Spokane, WA at 00:00Z on 2008-04-10The 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 20 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 50 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
1 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-47 J/kg
Surface CAPE
38 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1971 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
50 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
20 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
3 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
9.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Missoula radar (KMSX), 134 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:44 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
00:30 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD4 Nw KalispellFlathead, MTPUBLIC TOOK PICTURES FROM COSTCO PARKING LOT OF COLD AIR FUNNEL OR LAND SPOUT THAT TOUCHED THE GROUND IN AN OPEN LAND AREA NEAR KALISPELL. NO DAMAGE WAS REPORTED.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in MontanaEvery tornado in Montana since 1950Warnings in force in Montana nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 9, 2008

20 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 93:28 PM CDTEF0Taylor, TX0.150
April 93:35 PM CDTEF0Taylor, TX0.150
April 95:12 PM CDTEF0Stephens, TX2.375$40,000
April 95:21 PM CDTEF1Stephens, TX7.14006$1.0 million
April 95:36 PM CDTEF0Stephens, TX1.570
April 95:55 PM CDTEF0Palo Pinto, TX1.150
April 96:50 PM CDTEF0Palo Pinto, TX1.7100$150,000
April 97:10 PM CDTEF0Choctaw, OK0.175
April 97:43 PM CDTEF0Wise, TX1.860
April 98:26 PM CDTEF0McCurtain, OK1.0100
April 98:42 PM CDTEF0McCurtain, OK1.0150
April 99:03 PM CDTEF0Haskell, OK0.175$1,000
April 99:20 PM CDTEF0Grayson, TX1.350
April 99:42 PM CDTEF1Polk, AR2.1150
April 910:07 PM CDTEF0LeFlore, OK0.175
April 911:57 PM CDTEF0Irion, TX3.7300
April 912:01 AM CDTEF1Tom Green, TX1.575$150,000
April 912:07 AM CDTEF0Tom Green, TX6.780$10,000
April 912:14 AM CDTEF1Tom Green, TX4.1150$6.0 million
April 912:32 AM CDTEF0Tom Green, TX2.0100$50,000

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.