Tornadoes · United States · Wisconsin · 2019
EF0 tornado, Green Bay to Pine Grove, Wisconsin, August 7, 2019
From Green Bay to Pine Grove, this EF0 tornado ran 6.2 miles across Brown County on August 7, 2019, touching down at 5:48 PM CDT and reaching 90 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 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
- August 7, 2019
- Touchdown
- 5:48 PM CDT (22:48 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:57 PM CDT (22:57 UTC)
- On the ground
- 9 minutes
- Path length
- 6.2 miles (10.0 km)
- Path width
- 90 yards (82 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $50,000
- County
- Brown County
- Touchdown point
- 44.495, -87.988
- Lift-off point
- 44.447, -87.882
- Record number
- 1908071648-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Severe thunderstorms formed in very unstable air ahead of a passing cold front. The worst of the damage from the storms occurred across east-central and parts of northeast Wisconsin. Thunderstorm winds downed numerous trees and some power lines, hail as large as golf balls fell, and a weak tornado touched down on the east side of Green Bay (Brown Co.). Heavy rain led to flooding in parts of east-central Wisconsin as the storms formed an east-west line that slowly moved southeast.
A tornado quickly formed southeast of the city of Green Bay and moved southeast into the town of Bellevue. Three power poles sustained damage and a business sign was heavily damaged in Green Bay. The tornado continued southeast and damaged at least 100 trees along the path (DI 27 and 28, DOD 1-3). A poorly constructed carport lost part of its metal roof at an apartment building and a nearby house lost a couple shingles (DI 2, DOD 2).
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:51 UTC | 22:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GRB |
| 22:06 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Lakeshore Flood Advisory | GRB |
| 22:23 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GRB |
| 22:48 UTC | 23:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GRB |
| 00:01 UTC | 00:47 UTC | Flood Advisory | GRB |
| 00:22 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GRB |
| 00:42 UTC | 03:03 UTC | Flood 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 Slight 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
10.8 hours before the tornado, 13 km from the path. August 7, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 20 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -91 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1433 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 71 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 97 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.0 K/km
The radar
The Green Bay radar (KGRB), 14 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:46 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:06 UTC | HAIL 1 | Oconto | Oconto, WI | HAIL UP TO AN INCH IN DIAMETER IN OCONTO. |
| 21:06 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | Oconto | Oconto, WI | UPDATE OF PREVIOUS REPORT - OBSERVER MEASURED HAIL AND FOUND SOME AS LARGE AS 1.5 INCHES |
| 21:21 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Little Sturgeon | Door, WI | TREES DOWN. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 21:35 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Brussels | Door, WI | TREES DOWN. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 21:35 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Maplewood | Door, WI | 1 TREE DOWN. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 21:42 UTC | HAIL 0.5 | Green Bay | Brown, WI | DIME SIZE HAIL AT INTERSECTION OF EAST MASON STREET AND ALPINE ROAD. |
| 21:59 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Bear Creek | Outagamie, WI | COUPLE TREES DOWN IN THE TOWNSHIP OF DEER CREEK, FAR NORTHWEST OUTAGAMIE COUNTY. |
| 22:12 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Navarino | Shawano, WI | NUMEROUS TREES DOWN, SOME ON POWER LINES, OVER THE SOUTH CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST PART OF SHAWANO COUNTY. |
| 22:48 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Sse Green Bay | Brown, WI | TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN ON SOUTHEAST SIDE OF CITY OF GREEN BAY AND MOVED SOUTHEAST INTO TOWN OF BELLEVUE. EF0 DAMAGE WITH PEAK WINDS ESTIMATED NEAR 85 MPH. SEVERAL BUILDINGS SUSTAINED DAMAGE. NEARLY 100 TREES WERE AFFECTED. |
| 22:49 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Green Bay | Brown, WI | 2 POWER LINES DOWN AND SEVERAL TREES SNAPPED NEAR HEYRMAN AND CASS STREETS. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 22:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Se Green Bay | Brown, WI | ROOF OFF HARDWARE STORE AND TREES SNAPPED IN A 2-4 BLOCK RADIUS ON SOUTHEAST SIDE OF GREEN BAY. |
| 22:50 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | 2 Ene Green Bay | Brown, WI | |
| 22:54 UTC | HAIL 0.5 | Green Bay | Brown, WI | DIME SIZE HAIL AT INTERSECTION OF EAST MASON STREET AND ALPINE DRIVE. |
| 22:55 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 N Bellevue | Brown, WI | WIRES DOWN BELLEVUE AND ALLOUEZ AREAS |
| 23:05 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 W Luxemburg | Kewaunee, WI | COUPLE SMALL TREES AND SOME BRANCHES DOWN AT HWY 54 AND H. TIME ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 23:05 UTC | FLOOD | Luxemburg | Kewaunee, WI | FLOODING REPORTED FROM LUXEMBURG TO ALGOMA. NO OTHER DETAILS KNOWN AT THIS TIME. TIME ESTIMATED. |
| 00:02 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 2 E Appleton | Outagamie, WI | |
| 00:05 UTC | HAIL 1 | Appleton | Outagamie, WI | FROM SOCIAL MEDIA |
| 00:05 UTC | HAIL 1 | Hilbert | Calumet, WI | FROM SOCIAL MEDIA. TIME ESTIMATED. |
| 00:09 UTC | HAIL 1 | 2 E Green Bay | Brown, WI | MOST HAIL WAS SMALLER, BY SOME UP TO QUARTER SIZE. |
| 00:11 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | 3 E Green Bay | Brown, WI | |
| 00:17 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 3 E Green Bay | Brown, WI | |
| 00:19 UTC | FLOOD | Green Bay | Brown, WI | 2 FEET OF STANDING WATER AT INTERSECTION OF MILITARY AND SHAWANO IN GREEN BAY |
| 00:27 UTC | HAIL 1 | Appleton | Outagamie, WI | |
| 01:21 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Chilton | Calumet, WI | LARGE TREE BRANCHES DOWN ON WATER STREET IN CHILTON. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of August 7, 2019
4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.