Tornadoes · United States · Oregon · 2019

EF0 tornado, St Johns Jct to Portland, Oregon, July 1, 2019

From St Johns Jct to Portland, this EF0 tornado ran 1.6 miles across Multnomah County on July 1, 2019, touching down at 5:24 PM PDT and reaching 40 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $21,000 of property damage.

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 1, 2019
Touchdown
5:24 PM PDT (00:24 UTC)
Lifted
5:32 PM PDT (00:32 UTC)
On the ground
8 minutes
Path length
1.6 miles (2.6 km)
Path width
40 yards (37 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$21,000
County
Multnomah County
Touchdown point
45.560, -122.650
Lift-off point
45.551, -122.624
Record number
1907011824-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A broad upper level low over the Pacific brought a chance of afternoon showers and thunderstorms to the area. One of these storms produced an EF-0 tornado in northeast Portland.

Tree damage observed, with several large branches|down. A few large trees with shallow roots were uprooted along |Going St. between 16th Ave. and 21st Ave. Power pole was leaning |over on Going St. and 21st Ave. Some shingles torn off roofs at |13th Ave. and Wygant St. as well as 18th Ave. and Going St. Gutter|was also torn off house at 18th Ave. and Going St. A few bricks |came off of a chimney at 25th between Prescott St. and Skidmore |St.

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.

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 19:45 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.

Salem/Mcnary, OR (KSLE), 00:00Z

0.4 hours before the tornado, 76 km from the path. July 2, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 00:00Z on 2019-07-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 353 joules per kilogram, CIN -32, lifted condensation level 1248 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, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 00:00Z on 2019-07-02The 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 5 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 20 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
353 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-32 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1225 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1248 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
1 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
5 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-24 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
8.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Salem/Mcnary, OR (KSLE), 12:00Z

11.6 hours after it, 76 km from the path. July 2, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 12:00Z on 2019-07-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 3 joules per kilogram, CIN -121, lifted condensation level 779 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, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 12:00Z on 2019-07-02The 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 -17 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 16 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
3 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-121 J/kg
Surface CAPE
13 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
779 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-17 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
19 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Portland,OR radar (KRTX), 31 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.

What was reported nearby

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

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
00:24 UTCTORNADO3 Nne Portland DowntownMultnomah, ORA TORNADO WAS CONFIRMED BY NWS STORM SURVEY 3 MILES NNE OF DOWNTOWN PORTLAND. DAMAGE WAS MOSTLY TO TREES THOUGH MINOR ROOF DAMAGE WAS OBSERVED.
00:24 UTCTORNADO3 Nne Portland DowntownMultnomah, ORMAGNITUDE TO BE DETERMINED LATER TONIGHT. TORNADO TRACK APPROXIMATELY 1 MILE FROM 9TH AVE AND WYGANT ST TO 29TH AVE AND SKIDMORE ST. WIDTH APPROXIMATELY 100 FEET. MOSTLY TREE DAMAGE AND MINOR ROOF DAMAGE.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in OregonEvery tornado in Oregon since 1950Warnings in force in Oregon nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 1, 2019

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 15:05 PM CDTEF0Freeborn, MN0.025

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.