Tornadoes · United States · Oregon · 2020

EF0 tornado, Damascus, Oregon, June 13, 2020

This EF0 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Clackamas County on June 13, 2020, touching down at 6:28 PM PDT and reaching 200 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
June 13, 2020
Touchdown
6:28 PM PDT (01:28 UTC)
Lifted
6:39 PM PDT (01:39 UTC)
On the ground
11 minutes
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
200 yards (183 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Clackamas County
Touchdown point
45.410, -122.470
Lift-off point
45.418, -122.428
Record number
2006131928-01

What the Weather Service recorded

An upper low off of the Washington coast brought showers to the area with increasing instability in the afternoon into the early evening as the upper low moves inland near the Washington and Oregon border.

A tornado occurred in Damascus, Oregon just south of Hwy 212 between SE Tong Road and SE 232nd Drive. Damage occurred to numerous trees, mostly small and medium size branches. There were 5 trees (all pine or poplar) that were either snapped off or uprooted. The most significant property damage was noted near Royer Road where a large poplar tree was uprooted from very wet soil. This tree landed on parked vehicles, significantly damaging three of them. No structural damage to homes, roofs, windows, or outbuildings was found. Note: Start and end times were estimated from a combination of radar data and timestamps on videos from several members of the public who captured the event.

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 00:46 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

1.5 hours before the tornado, 70 km from the path. June 14, 2020.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 00:00Z on 2020-06-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 5 joules per kilogram, CIN -43, lifted condensation level 792 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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 2020-06-14The 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 108 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 35 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
5 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-43 J/kg
Surface CAPE
591 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
792 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
108 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
104 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

10.5 hours after it, 70 km from the path. June 14, 2020.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Salem/Mcnary, OR at 12:00Z on 2020-06-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 18 joules per kilogram, CIN -14, lifted condensation level 862 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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 2020-06-14The 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 50 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 78 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 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
18 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-14 J/kg
Surface CAPE
146 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
862 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
78 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
50 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
159 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Portland,OR radar (KRTX), 52 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:28 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
01:28 UTCTORNADO1 E DamascusClackamas, ORUPDATE TO PREVIOUS REPORT... EF-0 TORNADO WITH ESTIMATED MAX WINDS TO 75 MPH. THE TORNADO BEGAN 0.5 MILES SOUTHWEST OF DAMASCUS AND DISSIPATED 1.5 MILES EAST OF DAMASCUS, LASTING APPROXIMATELY 11 MINUTES. MORE DETAILED I
01:30 UTCTORNADO1 E DamascusClackamas, ORABOUT 1 MILE EAST OF DAMASCUS. VIDEO FROM SOCIAL MEDIA. REPORT OF TREE DOWN ON CAR ON SE ROYERS RD.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2020 tornado in OregonEvery tornado in Oregon since 1950Warnings in force in Oregon nowThe forecast where you are

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.