EF0 tornado, Ilwaco Arpt, Washington, March 19, 2021

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

March 19, 2021

Touchdown

8:04 PM PDT (03:04 UTC)

Lifted

8:08 PM PDT (03:08 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

60 yards (55 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Pacific County

Touchdown point

46.318, -124.006

Lift-off point

46.321, -124.003

Record number

2103192104-01

After an active day of low topped supercells over the coastal waters, one moved ashore producing a tornado in Ilwaco, Washington during the evening.

A tornado occurred in Ilwaco, Washington just north of the Port of Ilwaco Airport. The tornado began near the intersection of Redwing Way and Captain Gray Drive around 1904PST, tracked northeast across a housing subdivision, crossed the Wallacut River before dissipating near the intersection of Chinook Valley Road and U.S. Highway 101 around 1908PST. The tornado track was about one-third of a mile long and 60 yards wide. There was minor damage to trees, fences, windows, shingles, and other unsecured attachments to structures along the path (DI 2, DOD 2).

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 00:35 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.

Astoria/Clatsop (AST), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Langley Hill radar (KLGX), 89 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:03 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 2021 tornado in WashingtonEvery tornado in Washington since 1950Warnings in force in Washington nowThe forecast where you are

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.