EF1 tornado, Aneta Gehrke Arpt to Aneta, North Dakota, June 27, 2015

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

June 27, 2015

Touchdown

4:36 PM CDT (21:36 UTC)

Lifted

4:50 PM CDT (21:50 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.7 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Nelson County

Touchdown point

47.840, -98.070

Lift-off point

47.814, -97.898

Record number

1506271536-01

Temperatures rose into the 80s during the afternoon of the 27th along with dew points in the low to mid 60s. By mid to late afternoon a cold front and a strong short wave moved into the region. At 3 p. m. the cold front extended along a line from Langdon to Lakota to just west of Jamestown. Showers and thunderstorms formed along the cold front, but the first strong thunderstorm formed in southern Manitoba and tracked south-southeast into the Pembina and Cavalier county areas. Most of the storms stayed west of the Red River, although a few did form to the east of it. In addition, most storms showed strong rotation in many different areas of each individual storm. These storms produced large hail and tornadoes. Local news media and storm chasers took many pictures during the event, as most of the tornadoes were visible from long distances.

The tornado developed well behind the rain and hail of a rapidly intensifying thunderstorm. It was observed and reported by a spotter near Sharon. The tornado blew down an old barn and blew out two steel grain bins at one farmstead, snapped six pine trees at a second, and snapped several poplar trees at a third. Peak winds were estimated at 100 mph.

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

24 minutes of warning. NWS FGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:12 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:42 UTC and running to 23:42 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 19:57 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.

The Fargo/Grand Forks radar (KMVX), 59 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:37 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 2015 tornado in North DakotaEvery tornado in North Dakota since 1950Warnings in force in North Dakota nowThe forecast where you are

27 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.