Tornadoes · United States · Washington · 2009
EF1 tornado, Davenport to Little Falls, Washington, May 6, 2009
From Davenport to Little Falls, this EF1 tornado ran 3.4 miles across Lincoln County on May 6, 2009, touching down at 8:28 PM PDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $30,000 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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- May 6, 2009
- Touchdown
- 8:28 PM PDT (03:28 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:35 PM PDT (03:35 UTC)
- On the ground
- 7 minutes
- Path length
- 3.4 miles (5.4 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $30,000
- County
- Lincoln County
- Touchdown point
- 47.774, -118.141
- Lift-off point
- 47.801, -118.081
- Record number
- 0905062128-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A strong thunderstorm with rotation first spawned a funnel cloud and then a tornado, which briefly touched down just northeast of Davenport. The funnel cloud was spotted 16 miles northwest of Odessa, followed by a weak tornado eight miles north-northeast of Davenport. The EF1 tornado damaged two structures. By the time the storm reached north Spokane County, the rotation had weakened and was not as evident. However, a localized area of strong downburst winds impacted an area located five miles west of Chattaroy where a portion of a metal roof was blown off an out-building near the intersection of Monroe and Crosscut roads.
A short-lived tornado from a thunderstorm touched down and caused damage to two structures. It also uprooted and snapped numerous coniferous trees, many with trunk diameters greater than 15 inches.
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 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), 00:00Z
3.5 hours before the tornado, 128 km from the path. May 7, 2009.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -2 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 134 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 583 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 46 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 89 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 117 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.5 K/km
Spokane, WA (KOTX), 12:00Z
8.5 hours after it, 128 km from the path. May 7, 2009.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 18 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -72 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 934 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 80 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 39 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.7 K/km
The radar
The Spokane radar (KOTX), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:29 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 03:28 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 8 N Davenport | Lincoln, WA | PUBLIC REPORTED FUNNEL CLOUD WITH STORM MOVING APPROX 8 MILES NORTH OF DAVENPORT. |
| 04:20 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 W Chattaroy | Spokane, WA | PORTION OF METAL ROOF BLOWN OFF OUT-BUILDING NEAR INTERSECTION OF MONROE AND CROSSCUT ROADS. |
| 04:30 UTC | HAIL 0.5 | 2 Se Chattaroy | Spokane, WA | |
| 04:30 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 0.7 | Deer Park | Spokane, WA | SPOTTER STEVENS 8 REPORTED 0.70 INCHES OF RAIN WITHIN ONE HOUR UNDER HEAVY THUNDERSTORM. HEAVY RAINFALL RESULTED IN STANDING WATER IN THE STREEETS. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2009 tornado in WashingtonEvery tornado in Washington since 1950Warnings in force in Washington nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 6, 2009
21 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 6 | 1:19 AM CDT | EF0 | Arkansas, AR | 4.4 | 25 | $5,000 | ||
| May 6 | 2:03 AM CDT | EF1 | Phillips, AR | 0.1 | 25 | $40,000 | ||
| May 6 | 3:34 AM CDT | EF1 | Coahoma, MS | 0.1 | 25 | $60,000 | ||
| May 6 | 4:52 AM CDT | EF1 | Drew, AR | 2.1 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| May 6 | 7:12 AM CDT | EF1 | Choctaw, MS | 7.6 | 500 | $350,000 | ||
| May 6 | 7:47 AM CDT | EF1 | Noxubee, MS | 5.0 | 500 | 2 | $300,000 | |
| May 6 | 8:20 AM CDT | EF1 | Pickens, AL | 1.0 | 300 | $50,000 | ||
| May 6 | 8:25 AM CDT | EF1 | Lawrence, AL | 3.2 | 75 | $250,000 | ||
| May 6 | 8:31 AM CDT | EF1 | Pickens, AL | 1.3 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| May 6 | 8:42 AM CDT | EF0 | Morgan, AL | 0.7 | 75 | $50,000 | ||
| May 6 | 8:48 AM CDT | EF1 | Tuscaloosa, AL | 0.5 | 100 | $65,000 | ||
| May 6 | 8:57 AM CDT | EF1 | Tuscaloosa, AL | 0.2 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| May 6 | 8:59 AM CDT | EF2 | Limestone, AL | 10.9 | 75 | $1.0 million | ||
| May 6 | 9:11 AM CDT | EF0 | Walker, AL | 3.4 | 200 | $850,000 | ||
| May 6 | 9:20 AM CDT | EF1 | Walker, AL | 1.0 | 300 | $260,000 | ||
| May 6 | 9:24 AM CDT | EF0 | Walker, AL | 0.2 | 75 | $25,000 | ||
| May 6 | 9:45 AM CDT | EF0 | Blount, AL | 0.1 | 30 | $2,000 | ||
| May 6 | 9:50 AM CDT | EF1 | Jefferson, AL | 0.4 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| May 6 | 4:55 PM PDT | EF1 | Umatilla, OR | 1.6 | 40 | $50,000 | ||
| May 6 | 6:15 PM PDT | EF0 | Wallowa, OR | 0.2 | 10 | $100,000 | ||
| May 6 | 10:25 PM EDT | EF0 | Carroll, VA | 1.5 | 20 | $10,000 |
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.