EF3 tornado, Baker Arpt to Baker, Montana, June 11, 2016

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

June 11, 2016

Touchdown

6:54 PM MDT (00:54 UTC)

Lifted

7:04 PM MDT (01:04 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

7

Property damage

$1.5 million

County

Fallon County

Touchdown point

46.310, -104.250

Lift-off point

46.360, -104.270

Record number

1606111854-01

A moist southeast surface flow resulting in 50 to 60 degree dewoints along with strong deep shear combined with a strong mid-level speed max were centered over eastern Montana. As a result, severe thunderstorms developed across Rosebud, Custer and Fallon Counties. These thunderstorms produced very large hail, damaging wind gusts, as well as a tornado.

The pre-storm environment for eastern Montana was such that severe weather was likely. Surface dew point values in the Baker area were in the lower 60s with strong southeasterly flow converging in the vicinity of a stationary surface trough. This area of strong surface convergence, which also separated moist rich air to the east and drier air to the west, played a critical role in the development of this short-lived tornado. ||Although no fatalities occurred , seven injuries, some requiring hospitalization, resulted from the tornado. Two homes were totally destroyed and 40 to 50 more sustained excessive damage. The city blocks located between South 5th Street East and South 10th Street East intersected by Texas Avenue were hit the hardest and sustained the most damage. Many power poles were broken resulting in power lines down and power outages. Single tree trunks were described to look like match sticks as they were stripped of all branches and leaves. ||Over 70 personnel came with boots on the ground from the surrounding tri-state area. The communities of Plevna, Ekalaka, and Wibaux, Montana, Marmarth, Rhame, Bowman and Beach, North Dakota, as well as Ludlow, South Dakota responded shortly after the tornado. ||At the mesoscale level (2 to 2000 km in space), the interaction of pre-existing convergence zones or boundaries can serve as areas of storm development or enhancement. In some cases, pre-existing thunderstorms interacting with a boundary of converging surface winds can rapidly develop short-lived tornadoes with very little precursor indication from weather radar. The time scale of these events typically is on the order of a few minutes (0-10 minutes). ||In the case of the thunderstorms near Baker on Saturday, June 11th, evidence of these types of boundaries was observed.

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

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:00 UTC and running to 03:27 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. 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.

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 2016 tornado in MontanaEvery tornado in Montana since 1950Warnings in force in Montana nowThe forecast where you are

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.