EF0 tornado, Verona to Hope, Wisconsin, June 8, 2011

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

June 8, 2011

Touchdown

7:41 PM CDT (00:41 UTC)

Lifted

8:02 PM CDT (01:02 UTC)

On the ground

21 minutes

Path length

17.1 miles (27.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Dane County

Touchdown point

42.980, -89.584

Lift-off point

43.055, -89.260

Record number

1106081841-01

Forcing along an advancing cold front moving into a warm, moist unstable air mass over the region produced severe thunderstorms with a tornado, damaging winds and large hail over south-central and southeast Wisconsin during the evening hours of June 8th. The combination of instability, with surface-based CAPE of 3000 J/kg, and 0 to 6 km bulk shear of 40 knots produced supercell thunderstorms, with one of the cells developing an EF1 tornado over central Dane County that uprooted trees, felled power-lines, damaged three vehicles and crushed a garage. A cluster of supercell thunderstorms from Lafayette into Dane County then congealed into a bowing line that moved due east and created damaging wind gusts of 60 to 80 mph across much of the area along and south of Interstate-94. At the height of the event, over 27,000 customers had no electric power in Southeast Wisconsin, and probably another 15 to 20,000 customers in south-central Wisconsin lost power.

This tornado spun up southwest of Verona about 1/2 mile southwest of the intersection of CTH G and Sugar River Road, and traveled east-northeast to about 3 miles northeast of McFarland about 1.5 miles east-northeast of the intersection of Interstate 39/90 and STH 12/18. The damage path was sporadic. On the south side of Verona, numerous trees were uprooted, a garage was crushed by a fallen tree, and 3 vehicles were damaged by fallen trees. Several power lines were pulled down by broken tree branches. Scattered uprooted trees and/or broken tree branches were seen along the remainder of the tornado path. However, most of the damage occurred in the Verona area. Maximum winds in this EF1 tornado were about 95 mph based on DI 27 (TH), DOD 3. The actual starting location was 42.98002/-89.58399 and the ending location was 43.05538/-89.26050. The average path width was about 70 yards.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS MKX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:39 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:50 UTC and running to 02:22 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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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.

Middleton (C29), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Milwaukee radar (KMKX), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:42 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 2011 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.