EF0 tornado, Mott Muni Arpt, North Dakota, June 12, 2011

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

June 12, 2011

Touchdown

6:25 PM MDT (00:25 UTC)

Lifted

6:27 PM MDT (00:27 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Crop damage

$5,000

County

Hettinger County

Touchdown point

46.304, -102.387

Lift-off point

46.305, -102.385

Record number

1106121825-01

A strong short wave trough ejecting into the Northern Plains, coupled with increasing large scale ascent ahead of an upper level jet streak, brought widespread severe weather to much of southwest and south central North Dakota during the evening hours of June 12th. Favorable low level vertical wind shear increased the threat for supercellular storms and isolated tornados. Tornado Watch number 468 was initially issued during the mid afternoon for far southwest North Dakota, followed by Tornado Watch number 469 issued in the early evening for all of west and central North Dakota.||Numerous severe thunderstorm warnings, several tornado warnings, and several flood and flash flood warnings were issued during this event. Numerous reports of large hail, several reports of severe thunderstorm wind gusts, several reports of flash flooding, and four confirmed tornadoes, including one EF2 tornado, occurred during this event.

The observer reported a tornado briefly touched down in his farm fields and destroyed crops. No other damage, injuries, or fatalities occurred with this tornado. Based on the report, this was a weak EF0 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, with winds of 70 miles per hour.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:28 UTC and running to 05:51 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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.

Hettinger (HEI), 38 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Bismarck radar (KBIS), 135 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:26 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.

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 2011 tornado in North DakotaEvery tornado in North Dakota since 1950Warnings in force in North Dakota nowThe forecast where you are

11 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.