Tornadoes · United States · North Dakota · 2016

EF0 tornado, Freda, North Dakota, July 26, 2016

This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Grant County on July 26, 2016, touching down at 6:50 PM MDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
July 26, 2016
Touchdown
6:50 PM MDT (00:50 UTC)
Lifted
6:51 PM MDT (00:51 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.1 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Grant County
Touchdown point
46.330, -101.180
Lift-off point
46.329, -101.179
Record number
1607261850-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A series of weak short waves moved through the region with scattered thunderstorms developing over central North Dakota. A storm earlier in the day produced sub-severe hail over McIntosh County. Later in the day a few storms became severe with large hail over Morton and Sioux Counties in south central North Dakota, while another storm produced a short-lived EF-0 tornado over Grant County.

The tornado was on the ground for about one minute and traveled less than one-tenth of a mile over a rural area. No injuries or deaths were reported, and no damage occurred. As a result of the tornado hitting no structures it was rated EF-0.

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
23:24 UTC00:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningBIS

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 19:50 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), 00:00Z

0.8 hours before the tornado, 61 km from the path. July 27, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Bismarck Municip, ND at 00:00Z on 2016-07-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 425 joules per kilogram, CIN -26, lifted condensation level 1496 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 00:00Z on 2016-07-27The 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 -19 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 42 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
425 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-26 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1279 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1496 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
42 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-19 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
154 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
3.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

11.2 hours after it, 61 km from the path. July 27, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Bismarck Municip, ND at 12:00Z on 2016-07-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 13 joules per kilogram, CIN -156, lifted condensation level 741 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 2016-07-27The 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 21 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
13 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-156 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
741 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-23 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
37 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Bismarck radar (KBIS), 59 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:50 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
23:25 UTCHAIL 1.5FlasherMorton, ND
23:26 UTCHAIL 1.75FlasherMorton, NDPASSED ON VIA BROADCAST MEDIA.
23:30 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD3 Se FlasherMorton, NDPHOTOS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA AND TIME AND LOCATION ESTIMATED USING RADAR.
00:45 UTCHAIL 13 Nw Fort YatesSioux, NDWINDS GUSTING TO AN ESTIMATED 45 MPH.
00:50 UTCTORNADO7 Nnw ShieldsGrant, NDTORNADO WAS ON THE GROUND FOR ABOUT A MINUTE. NO DAMAGE WAS REPORTED. INFORMATION WAS RELAYED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA AND BROADCAST MEDIA. TIME AND LOCATION OF TOUCHDOWN WERE ESTIMATED FROM RADAR DATA. RATING WILL BE EF0.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in North DakotaEvery tornado in North Dakota since 1950Warnings in force in North Dakota nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 26, 2016

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 262:40 PM CDTEF0Barnes, ND0.320
July 267:00 PM MDTEF2Sheridan, NE1.0100$25,000
July 267:39 PM MDTEF0Sheridan, NE0.220

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.