Unrated tornado, Steele Muni Arpt, North Dakota, June 27, 2025

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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

June 27, 2025

Touchdown

10:57 PM CDT (03:57 UTC)

Lifted

11:14 PM CDT (04:14 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

1.3 miles (2.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Kidder County

Touchdown point

46.733, -100.017

Lift-off point

46.750, -100.029

Record number

2506272157-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BIS, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU.

• Estimated start of EF-U tornado.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Thunderstorms developed during the evening hours over central North Dakota in a very unstable environment, with several becoming supercells. Initially, very large hail was the main threat, but as the episode continued, tornadic development became the primary concern from any storms, with a total of nine tornadoes occurring. The first tornado touched down southwest of Hannover in Oliver County, and less than an hour later another tornado developed north of Crown Butte Lake in northeast Morton County. Then, after approximately an hour and a half, seven tornadoes were reported in the span of one hour, from around 10:12 to 11:12 PM CDT, in Burleigh, Kidder, and Emmons Counties. The most damaging tornado, which was rated an EF-2, impacted a farmstead west of Temvik in Emmons County causing significant damage. Two notable tornadoes touched down just to the north of the city of Bismarck which were highly visible, but one only caused limited damage. In addition to the tornadoes, these storms produced very large hail. The largest hail reported was 3.5 inches in diameter in Oliver County near Hannover, which fell from the same storm that produced the first tornado in Oliver County. North of Bismarck, extensive damage occurred due to hail up to the size of baseballs falling in multiple rural subdivisions earlier in the evening before the tornadic storm arrived. Many hail reports were received from the ICECHIP (In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains) project in the area.

The slow moving tornado formed over Long Lake and tracked in a generally northerly direction over the lake before dissipating. The tornado impacted no structures, thus there was no damage to evaluate. By National Weather Service policy the tornado is rated EF-U (Unknown).

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:22 UTC and running to 06:00 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 00:41 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 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 (BIS), 55 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Bismarck radar (KBIS), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:54 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 2025 tornado in North DakotaEvery tornado in North Dakota since 1950Warnings in force in North Dakota nowThe forecast where you are

8 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.