Tornadoes · United States · Wisconsin · 2016
EF0 tornado, Retreat, Wisconsin, July 5, 2016
This EF0 tornado ran 0.8 miles across Vernon County on July 5, 2016, touching down at 10:31 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 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 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 5, 2016
- Touchdown
- 10:31 PM CDT (03:31 UTC)
- Lifted
- 10:33 PM CDT (03:33 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.8 miles (1.3 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $5,000
- County
- Vernon County
- Touchdown point
- 43.444, -91.094
- Lift-off point
- 43.443, -91.078
- Record number
- 1607052131-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Tornadoes hit a small sections of western Wisconsin when they touched down near Cream and Waumandee (Buffalo County) and near Retreat (Vernon County). The tornado near Cream damaged a house and some farm outbuildings. The tornado near Waumandee damaged a hunting structure and crops. Trees and crops were damaged by the tornado near Retreat. Other parts of western Wisconsin were hit with high winds that blew down trees and power lines. Numerous trees were blown down in Onalaska (La Crosse County) with some of these landing on and damaging homes. The highest measured wind gust was 68 mph by the automated weather observing equipment at the La Crosse airport (La Crosse County).
An EF-0 tornado touched down in rural Vernon County near Retreat. The tornado was on the ground for about three-quarters of a mile and damaged trees and crops along its path.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
0 minutes of warning. NWS ARX issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:31 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:00 UTC.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:50 UTC and running to 04:39 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02:49 UTC | 03:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ARX |
| 02:50 UTC | 04:39 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | ARX |
| 03:31 UTC | 04:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | ARX |
| 03:45 UTC | 04:23 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ARX |
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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:50 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.
Davenport, (KDVN), 00:00Z
3.5 hours before the tornado, 208 km from the path. July 6, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1788 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -111 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3041 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1054 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 94 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 140 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 4.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.7 K/km
Davenport, (KDVN), 12:00Z
8.5 hours after it, 208 km from the path. July 6, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 13 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -530 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 84 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1741 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 43 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -188 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -90 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.6 K/km
The radar
The La Crosse radar (KARX), 43 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:31 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02:58 UTC | TSTM WND GST 68 | 1 Nne French Island | La Crosse, WI | ASOS STATION LA CROSSE REGIONAL AIRPORT /LSE/. |
| 02:58 UTC | NON-TSTM WND GST 68 | 1 Nne French Island | La Crosse, WI | ASOS STATION LA CROSSE REGIONAL AIRPORT /LSE/. |
| 03:05 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Se Onalaska | La Crosse, WI | FIREWORKS TENT BLOWN DOWN ACROSS FROM MALL. PERSON WAS TRAPPED INSIDE AND HAD TO RESCUED. NO INJURIES. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR. . |
| 03:05 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Onalaska | La Crosse, WI | NUMEROUS TREES DOWN ALONG OAK FOREST DRIVE. TREE ON A HOUSE. SCATTERED POWER OUTAGES. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 5, 2016
9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 5 | 2:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Swift, MN | 1.3 | 25 | $20,000 | ||
| July 5 | 3:01 PM CDT | EF0 | Swift, MN | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| July 5 | 7:39 PM CDT | EF1 | Rice, MN | 3.7 | 100 | $25,000 | ||
| July 5 | 7:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Goodhue, MN | 2.6 | 25 | |||
| July 5 | 8:28 PM CDT | EF1 | Wabasha, MN | 0.1 | 50 | $5,000 | ||
| July 5 | 8:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Pierce, WI | 0.3 | 25 | |||
| July 5 | 8:48 PM CDT | EF1 | Pepin, WI | 3.3 | 100 | $500,000 | ||
| July 5 | 9:10 PM CDT | EF1 | Buffalo, WI | 0.7 | 100 | $260,000 | ||
| July 5 | 9:13 PM CDT | EF1 | Buffalo, WI | 0.5 | 100 | $235,000 |
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.