Tornadoes · United States · Wisconsin · 2011
EF0 tornado, Range to Turtle Lake, Wisconsin, July 19, 2011
From Range to Turtle Lake, this EF0 tornado ran 0.9 miles across Polk County on July 19, 2011, touching down at 7:30 PM CDT and reaching 25 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.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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 19, 2011
- Touchdown
- 7:30 PM CDT (00:30 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:32 PM CDT (00:32 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.9 miles (1.4 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Polk County
- Touchdown point
- 45.528, -92.218
- Lift-off point
- 45.519, -92.204
- Record number
- 1107191830-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Thunderstorms that developed across northern Minnesota during the afternoon of Tuesday, July 19th, moved southeast into west central Wisconsin by the early evening and produced numerous damaging wind reports and flash flooding.
A weak tornado knocked down several dozen trees before crossing Pipe Lake, and dissipated on the eastern shore of Pipe Lake. A damage survey revealed the tornadic winds were about 65 mph. Just to the west of the tornado was a strong rear flank downdraft, with winds just less than 80 mph, which knocked down at least 100 trees (see separate entry).
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
24 minutes of warning. NWS MPX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:06 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 00:05 UTC and running to 04:04 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14:10 UTC | 18:24 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | MPX |
| 00:05 UTC | 04:04 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | MPX |
| 00:06 UTC | 00:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | MPX |
| 00:46 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MPX |
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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:57 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.
Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 00:00Z
0.5 hours before the tornado, 132 km from the path. July 20, 2011.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 5426 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -79 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 7194 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1247 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 33 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 253 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 330 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 4.8
- Supercell composite
- 44.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.0 K/km
Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 12:00Z
11.5 hours after it, 132 km from the path. July 20, 2011.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1197 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -293 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1651 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1807 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 61 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
The radar
The Minneapolis radar (KMPX), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:29 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:10 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Birchwood | Washburn, WI | |
| 00:22 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Frederic | Polk, WI | POWER LOST ACROSS TOWN. |
| 00:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Ssw Mckinley | Polk, WI | TREES DOWN. BOATS LIFTED. DOCKS DESTROYED. NUMEROUS BUILDINGS DAMAGED NEAR PIPE LAKE. DAMAGE ALSO REPORTED AROUND JOHNSTOWN TOWNSHIP. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR. DAMAGE SURVEY MAY BE NEEDED. |
| 00:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 7 N Range | Polk, WI | TREE DOWN OVER ROAD. |
| 00:47 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Turtle Lake | Barron, WI | |
| 00:51 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 4 S Turtle Lake | Barron, WI | FUNNEL APPEARS TO HAVE GONE BACK UP. |
| 00:52 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Turtle Lake | Barron, WI | TREE DAMAGE |
| 00:56 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 E Clayton | Barron, WI | LARGE BRANCHES DOWN. STRONG WIND LASTED FOR 10-15 MINUTES. |
| 01:15 UTC | HAIL 1 | Comstock | Barron, WI | |
| 01:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Barron | Barron, WI | FEW TREES DOWN ACROSS ROADS. |
| 01:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Chetek | Barron, WI | TREE DOWN ACROSS ROAD. |
| 01:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Dallas | Barron, WI | TREE DOWN ACROSS ROAD. |
| 01:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Wsw Sand Creek | Dunn, WI | TREE DOWN ACROSS ROAD. |
| 01:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Chetek | Barron, WI | TREE DOWN ACROSS ROAD. |
| 01:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Dallas | Barron, WI | TREE DOWN ACROSS ROAD. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2011 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 19, 2011
1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 19 | 2:39 PM CDT | EF0 | Medina, TX | 0.1 | 10 |
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.