Tornadoes · United States · Wisconsin · 2013
EF0 tornado, Parrish to Deerbrook, Wisconsin, July 9, 2013
From Parrish to Deerbrook, this EF0 tornado ran 9.5 miles across Langlade County on July 9, 2013, touching down at 3:32 PM CDT and reaching 100 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 9, 2013
- Touchdown
- 3:32 PM CDT (20:32 UTC)
- Lifted
- 3:56 PM CDT (20:56 UTC)
- On the ground
- 24 minutes
- Path length
- 9.5 miles (15.3 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Langlade County
- Touchdown point
- 45.264, -89.425
- Lift-off point
- 45.237, -89.233
- Record number
- 1307091432-01
The damage survey
4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GRB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
Thunderstorms formed along a weak boundary and produced several funnel clouds and four weak tornadoes. Damage by the tornadoes was minimal, affecting mainly wooded areas and open fields.
A tornado formed near the Lincoln/Langlade County line and moved east shortly after 3:30 PM CDT. The tornado track was not continuous and damage was restricted to trees, tree limbs (DI 28, DOD 2-3) and power lines. The average path width was 75 yards.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:19 UTC | 20:33 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GRB |
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 General Thunderstorms Risk. 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 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.
Green Bay/Straub, WI (KGRB), 12:00Z
8.5 hours before the tornado, 129 km from the path. July 9, 2013.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 110 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -148 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 810 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 2 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 9 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 43 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.7 K/km
Green Bay/Straub, WI (KGRB), 00:00Z
3.5 hours after it, 129 km from the path. July 10, 2013.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1035 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -22 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1593 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 695 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 204 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 287 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.0
- Supercell composite
- 6.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.4 K/km
The radar
The Green Bay radar (KGRB), 127 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:31 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:59 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Ssw Irma | Lincoln, WI | TREES AND POWERLINES DOWN NEAR INTERSECTION OF SCHULZ SPUR DRIVE AND PIER STREETS. POSSIBLE TORNADO. |
| 20:10 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Irma | Lincoln, WI | |
| 20:14 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Se Gleason | Lincoln, WI | TREES DOWN NEAR INTERSECTION OF JANE SPUR ROAD AND COUNTY LINE ROAD. POSSIBLE TORNADO. |
| 20:40 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 2 E Gleason | Lincoln, WI | NEAR HWY J AND HWY H. |
| 20:56 UTC | TORNADO | 1 W Deerbrook | Langlade, WI | NEAR COUNTY ROAD C AND HWY 45. |
| 21:01 UTC | TORNADO | 1 W Deerbrook | Langlade, WI | TORNADO OBSERVED TO LIFT OFF THE GROUND AND TOUCHDOWN SEVERAL TIMES. NEAR INTERSECTION OF COUNTY C AND COUNTY H. MOVING EAST TOWARD ORMSBY ROAD. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2013 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 9, 2013
8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 9 | 2:59 PM CDT | EF0 | Lincoln, WI | 4.1 | 100 | |||
| July 9 | 3:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Morton, ND | 1.8 | 50 | $95,000 | ||
| July 9 | 5:10 PM CDT | EF0 | Custer, NE | 0.0 | 20 | |||
| July 9 | 5:14 PM CDT | EF0 | Dawson, NE | 1.7 | 50 | |||
| July 9 | 5:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Custer, NE | 0.2 | 75 | |||
| July 9 | 6:33 PM EDT | EF0 | Manatee, FL | 0.2 | 15 | 1 | $20,000 | |
| July 9 | 5:44 PM CDT | EF0 | Portage, WI | 0.2 | 25 | |||
| July 9 | 7:50 PM CDT | EF0 | Oconto, WI | 1.6 | 100 | $25,000 |
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.