EF0 tornado, Bowbells, North Dakota, August 12, 2010

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

August 12, 2010

Touchdown

9:03 PM CDT (02:03 UTC)

Lifted

9:04 PM CDT (02:04 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Burke County

Touchdown point

48.819, -102.271

Lift-off point

48.819, -102.269

Record number

1008122003-01

A significant severe weather event evolved during the evening hours of Thursday, August 12th, and continued into the early morning hours of Friday, August 13th. Southwest flow aloft was in place across the Northern Plains region, ahead of an upper level trough over the Northern Rockies. A potent upper level impulse ejecting from the base of the trough provided the trigger for two areas of strong to severe convection. The first area was near a stationary boundary across southern North Dakota, where intense thunderstorm winds of 80 to near 100 mph were observed. The second area was ahead of a cold front over north central North Dakota, where an isolated tornadic supercell developed and spawned an EF3 tornado near Bowbells. ||Well into this event, Severe Thunderstorm Watch number 605 was issued across southwest and south central North Dakota in anticipation of a Mesoscale Convective System over southwest North Dakota tracking eastward along the South Dakota border area. By the time of the watch issuance, the tornadic supercell over north central North Dakota had dissipated.||Multiple severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings were issued. Several reports of large hail, numerous reports of strong thunderstorm winds, and one confirmed EF3 tornado was received during this episode. ||The EF3 tornado tragically claimed one fatality. An automobile traveling east on Highway 52 was picked up and carried several hundred yards before being thrown into a field. Another person in the car was injured. In addition, a farmstead sustained heavy damage from the tornado, with severe damage observed to the home and several outbuildings.

A brief tornado touched down in the open country west of Bowbells. No structures were impacted so no damage was done. This tornado was spawned from the same supercell thunderstorm that later produced another brief tornado in Burke County and a long tracked high end EF3 tornado from Burke into Ward County. See the other two tornado entries for Burke County and the tornado entry for Ward County from August 12.

A second brief tornado touched down in the open country just west of the Bowbells airport. No structures were impacted so no damage was done. This tornado was spawned from the same supercell thunderstorm that earlier produced a brief tornado in Burke County, and later produced a long tracked high end EF3 tornado from Burke into Ward County. See the other two tornado entries for Burke County and the tornado entry for Ward County from August 12.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS BIS issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:59 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:30 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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.

Minot_afb (MIB), 81 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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 2010 tornado in North DakotaEvery tornado in North Dakota since 1950Warnings in force in North Dakota nowThe forecast where you are

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.