F0 tornado, De Pere, Wisconsin, September 13, 2005

1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

   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 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

F0

Date

September 13, 2005

Touchdown

6:09 PM CDT (23:09 UTC)

Path length

1.9 miles (3.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Brown County

Touchdown point

44.450, -88.050

Lift-off point

44.450, -88.050

Record number

444

Thunderstorms developed as a cold front interacted with a moist and very unstable air mass over Wisconsin. Many of the storms became severe, with gusts in excess of 60 mph, as they moved across east central Wisconsin. Downed trees and power lines were widespread. At least 50,000 people on the north side of Oshkosh (Winnebago co.) were without electricity for at least part of the evening. A billboard was destroyed when it was blown onto U.S. Highway 41 near Lake Butte des Morts (Winnebago co.). Heavy damage was reported in the Appleton area (Outagamie co.), where at least one tree landed on a car, flag poles were blown down, roofs were torn from at least three houses under construction, a construction trailer was overturned and a semi was blown over on U.S. Highway 441. Silos, sheds, garages and at least three barns were blown down and power was knocked out in Greenville (Outagamie co.) and Freedom (Outagamie co.). The wind tore away parts of the screen at a drive-in movie theater in Freedom. In Ashwaubenon (Brown co.) a twenty unit garage that was under construction was destroyed, by winds estimated near 80 mph, when it was lifted from its concrete slab and thrown at least 100 feet. A pole building was blown down near Cooperstown (Manitowoc co.) and baseball size hail broke windows near Algoma (Kewaunee co.).A tornado touched down in De Pere (Brown co.) and traveled north into Allouez (Brown co.) where it dissipated just north of Heritage Hill State Park. The tornado's occasional brief touchdowns topped numerous trees. Some of the trees caused damage to buildings and vehicles when they fell, but the tornado caused little direct structural damage to any buildings.

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 20:06 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 Green Bay radar (KGRB), 7 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:07 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 2005 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.