EF1 tornado, Bingham Spgs, Oregon, May 6, 2022

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 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

EF1

Date

May 6, 2022

Touchdown

1:44 PM PDT (20:44 UTC)

Lifted

2:00 PM PDT (21:00 UTC)

On the ground

16 minutes

Path length

2.9 miles (4.6 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Umatilla County

Touchdown point

45.787, -118.283

Lift-off point

45.799, -118.226

Record number

2205061444-01

14 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PDT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 104 mph.

• Apparent start to damage. No damage found west of this point.
• Multiple pieces of winter snow fencing ripped and deformed. One whole piece of the winter fence was displaced and moved to across the street.
• Multiple large branches broken from multiple trees.
• Combination of significant roof covering material loss (>20%) and porch roof failure. Roof deck displaced roughly 350 feet to the ENE.

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

A potent upper level shortwave trough coupled with a cold front passage at the surface provided showery activity through most of the day. During the afternoon, these systems interacted with increasing instability, strong bulk shear, and upsloping into mountain areas allowed some of these showers to strengthen into strong thunderstorms that produced severe hail and a tornado.

At 1244 PST, a tornado spun up 7 miles east southeast of Weston, OR along OR Highway 204 and moved east crossing OR Highway 204 3 times before veering left about 1.9 miles from it's start point. The tornado continued east north east for 0.80 miles across a draw north of OR Hwy 204, following parallel to Lower Basket Mountain Rd for about 0.8 miles before dissipating. Many trees were either uprooted or snapped while covering the highway and other roads. Several residences saw roof damage, including failure and uplifting of a partial roof that was transported 300 feet. A farm outbuilding was also heavily damaged where the roof and walls had collapsed.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:54 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.

Walla Walla Rgn (ALW), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Pendleton radar (KPDT), 48 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:44 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 2022 tornado in OregonEvery tornado in Oregon since 1950Warnings in force in Oregon nowThe forecast where you are

13 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.