Tornadoes · United States · North Dakota · 1994

F0 tornado, Near Mint Hill to Finley, North Dakota, May 3, 1994

From Near Mint Hill to Finley, this F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Steele County on May 3, 1994, touching down at 4:10 PM CDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 to $50,000 of property damage.

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.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. 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.

  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
F0
Date
May 3, 1994
Touchdown
4:10 PM CDT (21:10 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$5,000 to $50,000
County
Steele County
Touchdown point
47.620, -97.800
Record number
293

What the Weather Service recorded

A woman taped several minutes of a multiple vortex tornado that passed south of her farm. As the tornado went out of view of the video, she and her two children took cover in their mobile home. At the end of the tape, as the tornado moved out of view, the video showed a microburst to the west of the farm. This is what did most of the damage. After the microburst, she looked up and saw blue sky. She and the children were in the limbs of a tree with mobile home debris covering her legs. They were treated for scratches and bruises. The woman and one child were kept overnight at the hospital for observation. Some of the damage included destruction of the mobile home and other farm buildings as well as farm machinery and trees. The path and length of the tornado were estimated.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:29 UTC22:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningFGF

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 06:41 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.

Bismarck Municip, ND (KBIS), 12:00Z

9.2 hours before the tornado, 239 km from the path. May 3, 1994.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Bismarck Municip, ND at 12:00Z on 1994-05-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 3 joules per kilogram, CIN -246, lifted condensation level 898 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, Bismarck Municip, ND at 12:00Z on 1994-05-03The 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 115 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 knots.193958Sfc1 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
3 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-246 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
898 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
115 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
141 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Bismarck Municip, ND (KBIS), 00:00Z

2.8 hours after it, 239 km from the path. May 4, 1994.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Bismarck Municip, ND at 00:00Z on 1994-05-04Temperature 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 -43935, lifted condensation level 2552 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, Bismarck Municip, ND at 00:00Z on 1994-05-04The 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 -23 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 knots.193958Sfc1 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
-43935 J/kg
Surface CAPE
9 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2552 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-23 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
59 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
9.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Grand_forks_afb (RDR), 48 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
19:25 UTC190° 16 kt1008.1
20:00 UTC6560170° 16 kt1006.8-TSRA
20:20 UTC170° 22 kt281006.1
20:28 UTC190° 27 kt321005.8
21:00 UTC6554190° 21 kt271006.4TS
21:04 UTC210° 14 kt211005.8
21:44 UTC190° 17 kt1005.4
22:00 UTC6154180° 16 kt1005.4TS
22:17 UTC160° 21 kt281005.4
23:00 UTC6154150° 17 kt1004.7

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1994 tornado in North DakotaEvery tornado in North Dakota since 1950Warnings in force in North Dakota nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 3, 1994

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 37:52 AM CDTF0Hancock, MS1.030$5,000 to $50,000
May 31:56 PM CDTF0Okaloosa, FL0.110
May 31:56 PM CDTF0Okaloosa, FL0.110
May 31:56 PM CDTF0Okaloosa, FL0.110
May 33:09 PM CDTF0Okaloosa, FL0.110
May 34:40 PM EDTF1Volusia, FL3.0100$5 million to $50 million
May 37:33 PM MDTF0Wallace, KS0.120

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.