F2 tornado, Crandon To to Laona, Wisconsin, May 30, 1994

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   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. F3158 to 206 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 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

F2

Date

May 30, 1994

Touchdown

9:50 PM CDT (02:50 UTC)

Path length

12.0 miles (19.3 km)

Path width

880 yards (805 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

3

Property damage

$500,000 to $5 million

County

Forest County

Touchdown point

45.550, -88.930

Lift-off point

45.580, -88.680

Record number

445

Severe thunderstorms raked west-central and northern Wisconsin with violent damaging winds up to 61 mph, hail up to tennis ball-size, and two tornadoes. A tornado set down just east of Woodville in St Croix County damaging eight farm dwellings and structures along its one-mile path causing $55,000 damage. Another tornado cut a 12-mile path from just southwest of Crandon to just north of Laona in Forest County causing $1 million damage. It destroyed three mobile homes, damaged or destroyed 25 homes and leveled 600 acres of timber. Three people were injured in a mobile home that was destroyed by the tornado. Widespread hail up to tennis ball-size fell over the Rhinelander area damaging hundreds of vehicles as well as roofs and windows. A severe thunderstorm with damaging winds knocked down about 3,000 trees and damaged several homes and cabins seven miles southeast of Seeley, Sawyer County.

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:12 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1994 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.