EF1 tornado, West Salem Arpt to West Salem, Wisconsin, March 6, 2017

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

March 6, 2017

Touchdown

8:46 PM CST (02:46 UTC)

Lifted

8:50 PM CST (02:50 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$290,000

County

La Crosse County

Touchdown point

43.856, -91.117

Lift-off point

43.881, -91.078

Record number

1703062046-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ARX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A line of thunderstorms developed along a cold front and moved across western Wisconsin during the evening hours of March 6th. These storms produced a tornado near Barre Mills (La Crosse County) along with damaging winds and hail. A metal grain bin was blown over in Elk Creek (Trempealeau County), a light post and business signs were downed in downtown La Crosse (La Crosse County) and a camper was damaged by fallen trees west of Viroqua (Vernon County). The largest hail reported was golfball in La Farge (Vernon County).

The tornado started just north of Barre Mills and rapidly moved northeast before dissipating south of West Salem. A broken damage path was found by the survey team. Along the path, the tornado snapped numerous trees, destroyed some small farm buildings, a silo, parts of several barns, removed part of the roof from one house, heavily damaged another and damaged the porch on a farm house. There was other damage along Interstate 90 that may have been related to this tornado.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 01:42 UTC and running to 03:46 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:54 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.

The La Crosse radar (KARX), 9 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:45 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 2017 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

53 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.