EF1 tornado, Moon to Knowlton, Wisconsin, July 19, 2019

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

July 19, 2019

Touchdown

8:20 PM CDT (01:20 UTC)

Lifted

8:30 PM CDT (01:30 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

9.0 miles (14.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Marathon County

Touchdown point

44.750, -89.788

Lift-off point

44.740, -89.606

Record number

1907191920-01

A line of severe thunderstorms moved across much of central, north central, and eastern Wisconsin during the evening hours of July 19, 2019. Widespread tree and power line damage was reported from central Wisconsin into the Fox Valley and lake shore. WPS reported over 50,000 outages at the height of the storm.||The worst damage was associated with a macroburst, a large downburst of straight-line winds that affected a large swath from Pelican Lake in Oneida County, southeast through Langlade and Oconto counties. Hundreds of thousands of trees were snapped or uprooted, resulting in damage to dozens of homes and cottages. The damage path was about 60 miles long and up to 10 miles wide at times. Winds were likely near 100 mph in the hardest hit areas near Lily in northeast Langlade County and near the Langlade-Oconto County line southwest of Boot Lake.

A tornado produced damage to dozens of trees (DI 28, DOD 2,3,4), damaged the roof of an outbuilding (DI 1, DOD 4), and demolished an old barn (DI 1, DOD 6) in the town of Knowlton. Peak winds were estimated near 90 mph.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:55 UTC and running to 02:57 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 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.

Mosinee/Central (CWA), 4 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Green Bay radar (KGRB), 128 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:19 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 2019 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.