Tornadoes · United States · Wisconsin · 2014
EF1 tornado, Fennimore to Centerville, Wisconsin, June 29, 2014
From Fennimore to Centerville, this EF1 tornado ran 8.2 miles across Grant County on June 29, 2014, touching down at 10:00 PM CDT and reaching 600 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $410,000 of property damage.
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 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
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
- EF1
- Date
- June 29, 2014
- Touchdown
- 10:00 PM CDT (03:00 UTC)
- Lifted
- 10:11 PM CDT (03:11 UTC)
- On the ground
- 11 minutes
- Path length
- 8.2 miles (13.2 km)
- Path width
- 600 yards (549 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $410,000
- Crop damage
- $6,000
- County
- Grant County
- Touchdown point
- 42.999, -90.640
- Lift-off point
- 42.999, -90.479
- Record number
- 1406292100-01
The damage survey
27 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ARX and NWS MKX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.
- at residence, splatter on garage.
- Hardwoods snapped 300 yards to the south from standing on the path. Path estimate width at 1/4 mi.
- outbuilding just south of path. light damage.
- some soffit uplift on the house, porch and house otherwise sustained minor damage
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
A cluster of severe thunderstorms developed ahead of an advancing cold front over northeast Iowa during the evening of June 29th. As these storms moved across southwest Wisconsin they produced a tornado near Fennimore (Grant County) that produced considerable tree damage, destroyed several farm outbuildings and damaged three homes. The storms also produced damaging winds that blew over vehicles near Mt. Hope (Grant County) and Fennimore. Barns were blown down near Sinsinawa (Grant County) and Louisburg (Grant County).
A tornado touched down 2 miles northeast of Fennimore and skipped along an east path to 3 miles northwest of Montfort. The tornado damaged several mature hardwood trees, several outbuildings and three homes. On one farm alone, eight buildings were destroyed. The homes sustained minor damage compared to the hardwood trees and outbuildings. The tornado was rated an EF1 with maximum estimated winds of 110 mph. Total path length was 8.2 miles and the maximum width of the tornado was 600 yards.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The surface observations
Boscobel (OVS), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The La Crosse radar (KARX), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:59 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2014 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 29, 2014
14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 29 | 6:05 AM CDT | EF1 | Gove, KS | 1.0 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| June 29 | 7:28 PM CDT | EF0 | Hamilton, IA | 2.0 | 40 | |||
| June 29 | 8:08 PM CDT | EF0 | Shelby, IA | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| June 29 | 8:18 PM CDT | EF1 | Grundy, IA | 1.9 | 50 | $30,000 | ||
| June 29 | 8:25 PM CDT | EF1 | Hardin, IA | 1.3 | 75 | $1,000 | ||
| June 29 | 9:12 PM CDT | EF0 | Buchanan, MO | 0.3 | 25 | |||
| June 29 | 9:20 PM CDT | EF0 | Shawnee, KS | 1.6 | 30 | |||
| June 29 | 9:55 PM CDT | EF1 | Mercer, MO | 6.3 | 300 | |||
| June 29 | 10:18 PM CDT | EF2 | Iowa, WI | 29.1 | 400 | $3.5 million | ||
| June 29 | 10:26 PM CDT | EF2 | Iowa, WI | 5.0 | 200 | $400,000 | ||
| June 29 | 10:36 PM CDT | EF0 | Jones, IA | 0.1 | 25 | |||
| June 29 | 11:27 PM CDT | EF1 | Dane, WI | 2.3 | 500 | $50,000 | ||
| June 29 | 12:30 AM CDT | EF1 | Carroll, IL | 2.2 | 600 | $50,000 | ||
| June 29 | 12:45 AM CDT | EF1 | Schuyler, MO | 4.7 | 300 |
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.