Tornadoes · United States · Oregon · 2022

Unrated tornado, Barnhart, Oregon, June 11, 2022

This Unrated tornado ran 0.0 miles across Umatilla County on June 11, 2022, touching down at 12:00 PM PDT and reaching 15 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 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.

The record

Rating
Unrated
Date
June 11, 2022
Touchdown
12:00 PM PDT (19:00 UTC)
Lifted
12:30 PM PDT (19:30 UTC)
On the ground
30 minutes
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
15 yards (14 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Umatilla County
Touchdown point
45.610, -118.910
Lift-off point
45.610, -118.909
Record number
2206111300-01

What the Weather Service recorded

An atmospheric river pointed at the Pacific Northwest provided plentiful moisture east of the Cascades for scattered to isolated showers to develop across the region. Though instability in the area was weak, an isolated shower about 6 miles southwest of KPDT was able to produce a well defined funnel cloud that preceded a weak small tornado.

The Pendleton Airport air traffic controller relayed a report from a pilot travelling south of the airfield that debris and dust was being picked up by a small tornado. A funnel cloud was observed by NWS personnel and by the public shortly before the relayed report.

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
06:00 UTC12:00 UTCFlood WatchPDT

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 16:25 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.

Spokane, WA (KOTX), 12:00Z

7.0 hours before the tornado, 301 km from the path. June 11, 2022.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Spokane, WA at 12:00Z on 2022-06-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -102709, lifted condensation level 644 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Spokane, WA at 12:00Z on 2022-06-11The 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 84 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 59 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-102709 J/kg
Surface CAPE
115 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
644 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
59 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
84 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
67 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Spokane, WA (KOTX), 00:00Z

5.0 hours after it, 301 km from the path. June 12, 2022.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Spokane, WA at 00:00Z on 2022-06-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 20 joules per kilogram, CIN -7, lifted condensation level 1747 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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, Spokane, WA at 00:00Z on 2022-06-12The 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 16 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 52 knots.1939587897Sfc1 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
20 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-7 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1010 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1747 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
52 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
16 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
24 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.7
0-3 km lapse rate
8.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Pendleton radar (KPDT), 10 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:01 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
16:12 UTCHEAVY RAIN 1.358 Se Pilot RockUmatilla, OR
19:10 UTCTORNADO6 Sw PendletonUmatilla, ORPENDLETON ATC TOWER RELAYED REPORT FROM A PILOT SOUTH OF AIRFIELD, OF OBSERVING DEBRIS AND DUST BEING PICKED UP BY A SMALL TORNADO. INITIAL FUNNEL CLOUD WAS OBSERVED BY NWS PERSONNEL AND PUBLIC.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in OregonEvery tornado in Oregon since 1950Warnings in force in Oregon nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 11, 2022

10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 112:38 AM EDTEF0Charlotte, FL0.125
June 115:18 PM CDTUnratedGage, NE0.120
June 115:40 PM CDTEF1Gage, NE to KS4.2150
June 115:53 PM CDTEF1Marshall, KS6.330
June 116:02 PM CDTEF1Marshall, KS0.730
June 116:26 PM CDTEF1Marshall, KS1.7100
June 117:04 PM CDTEF1Pottawatomie, KS11.350
June 117:20 PM CDTEF2Riley, KS0.350$10 million
June 117:32 PM CDTUnratedRiley, KS0.010
June 1110:07 PM CDTEF0Clinton, MO0.020

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.