Tornadoes · United States · Washington · 2016

EF0 tornado, Mold, Washington, July 22, 2016

This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Douglas County on July 22, 2016, touching down at 12:31 PM PDT and reaching 50 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
July 22, 2016
Touchdown
12:31 PM PDT (19:31 UTC)
Lifted
12:41 PM PDT (19:41 UTC)
On the ground
10 minutes
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Douglas County
Touchdown point
47.781, -119.406
Lift-off point
47.781, -119.406
Record number
1607221331-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Wet thunderstorms moving to the north and northeast at 20 mph produced heavy rainfall over parts of the East Slopes and North Cascades including parts of the Okanogan Valley. The resulting heavy rainfall produced some debris flows and Flash floods near Methow, Brewster and Carlton in Okanogan County of Washington. Later on in the day this same disturbance produced more severe thunderstorms with two tornadoes occurring, one near Mould, WA and a second near Airway Heights, WA along with a number of fallen trees in the Spokane area.

Two separate reports from the public, both with video, noted a tornado approximately 5 miles north northwest of Mold, WA.

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
18:00 UTC21:34 UTCFlash Flood WatchOTX

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 16:32 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

7.5 hours before the tornado, 225 km from the path. July 22, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Spokane, WA at 12:00Z on 2016-07-22Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 14 joules per kilogram, CIN -475, lifted condensation level 2540 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, Spokane, WA at 12:00Z on 2016-07-22The 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 102 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 47 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
14 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-475 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2540 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
47 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
102 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
119 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Spokane, WA (KOTX), 00:00Z

4.5 hours after it, 225 km from the path. July 23, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Spokane, WA at 00:00Z on 2016-07-23Temperature 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 -43607, lifted condensation level 1719 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 00:00Z on 2016-07-23The 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 81 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 19 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-43607 J/kg
Surface CAPE
456 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1719 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
81 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
43 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
7.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Spokane radar (KOTX), 134 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:30 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
19:25 UTCFLASH FLOOD1 Ne MethowOkanogan, WAFLOODING ON PRIVATE LAND ALONG FRENCH CREEK ROAD.
19:25 UTCFLASH FLOOD1 S MethowOkanogan, WAWATER/MUD OVER THE ROADWAY NEAR 315 BURMA ROAD.
19:25 UTCFLASH FLOOD4 Wnw BrewsterOkanogan, WAMUD WASHED OUT OFF OF A STEEP HILLSIDE ON A ROAD IN INDIAN DAN CANYON AT MILE POST 4.6. THE ROADWAY WAS IMPASSABLE.
19:25 UTCFLASH FLOOD4 Wnw BrewsterOkanogan, WATHE ROADWAY IS WASHED OUT FOUR MILE UP FROM SR 97 ON INDIAN DAN CANYON ROAD.
19:36 UTCTORNADO5 Nnw MoldDouglas, WACORRECTED PREVIOUS REPORT FOR TIME. TWO SEPARATE REPORTS OF A TORNADO NEAR THIS LOCATION. BOTH FROM SOCIAL MEDIA, BOTH WITH VIDEO. .
20:30 UTCTORNADO5 Nnw MoldDouglas, WATWO SEPARATE REPORTS OF A TORNADO NEAR THIS LOCATION. BOTH FROM SOCIAL MEDIA, BOTH WITH VIDEO. WILL CONTINUE TO INVESTIGATE LOCATION AND TIMING.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in WashingtonEvery tornado in Washington since 1950Warnings in force in Washington nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 22, 2016

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 2211:10 AM EDTEF0Chatham, GA0.120
July 222:04 PM CDTEF0Jones, MS0.9100$45,000
July 223:20 PM PDTEF0Spokane, WA0.250

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.