F3 tornado, Grantsburg to Spooner, Wisconsin, June 18, 2001

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 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. F3158 to 206 mphthis tornado

   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

F3

Date

June 18, 2001

Touchdown

8:06 PM CDT (01:06 UTC)

Path length

34.0 miles (54.7 km)

Path width

880 yards (805 m)

Deaths

2

Injuries

16

Property damage

$10 million

Counties

Burnett and Washburn counties

Touchdown point

45.780, -92.650

Lift-off point

45.830, -91.970

Record number

350

The tornado touched down at 806 pm local daylight time 1.5 miles east of Grantsburg and traveled east at an average speed of 40 mph through the village of Siren to the Washburn County line, then continued on to a point 3 miles west of Spooner. The path of the tornado averaged 1/8 to 1/4 mile, but reached its greatest width of ½ mile as it approached Siren around 820 pm, where it did F-3 damage. Two people were killed by the tornado, and there were 16 injuries. Four hundred homes were destroyed, 200 in Siren alone, with 280 homes damaged, and 60 businesses destroyed or damaged. Most of the damage occurred in an 8-block area of Siren. Approximately 14,000 acres of trees were leveled along the tornado path. The two people killed were in Dewey Township, about 14 miles east of Siren. An 80-year-old woman was crushed by a falling wall while trying to get to the basement, and a 77-year-old man was found dead about 100 yards from his demolished home, presumably thrown there by tornado-force winds. Many buildings in the path of the tornado through Dewey Township, including the Dewey Town Hall, were destroyed as well. Power lines, trees, and buildings were also damaged or destroyed at Alpha, Falun, and Mud Hen Lake along the path of the tornado between Grantsburg and Siren. Fifteen cows were lost when a barn collapsed near Falun. Some were killed outright. Others were injured and had to be put down.

The tornado, which began near Grantsburg in Burnett County, entered Washburn County at 851 pm local daylight time, 7 miles west of Spooner, and traveled to a point about 3 miles west of Spooner, dissipating around 900 pm. The tornado was in the dissipating stage as it entered Washburn County, but the tree and structural damage that was reported was still classified as F-2. Several homes had windows blown in, roofs torn off, or were damaged by falling trees.

The deaths

2 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

35 minutes of warning. NWS DLH issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:31 UTC, 35 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

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 00:51 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 Duluth radar (KDLH), 115 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:06 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.