EF0 tornado, Weyerhaeuser to Bruce, Wisconsin, July 4, 2019

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

July 4, 2019

Touchdown

5:39 PM CDT (22:39 UTC)

Lifted

5:53 PM CDT (22:53 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

7.6 miles (12.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Rusk County

Touchdown point

45.317, -91.346

Lift-off point

45.361, -91.203

Record number

1907041639-01

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

• eastern edge had trees to the north.
• trees snapped 30 feet up and tossed
• 541 texted, then 547 had just hit
• smaller tree on roof facing north

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

Several strong thunderstorms developed during the afternoon along the leading edge of a mesoscale convective system that formed earlier in the day across the Dakotas, and moved eastward across central Minnesota, and into west central Wisconsin. Most of the storms were non-severe with locally heavy rainfall reported. Storms that moved across eastern Minnesota during the afternoon, intensified in west central Wisconsin, west of Rusk County. These storms produced a nearly 8 mile tornado track from near Fireside Lake, northeast to just east of the Flambeau River. Numerous trees were uprooted along this track with several of the trees landing on cabins. No injuries were reported.

A NWS Storm Survey indicated that an EF0 tornado touched down on the west side of Fireside Lake, on Mud Lake Road. This tornado tracked approximately 7.6 miles northeast, before lifting on the east side of the Flambeau River, west of Sheep Camp Road. The tornado was on the ground for 14 minutes with a path width of 100 yards, and a maximum wind speed of 85 mph. Numerous trees were blown down or uprooted along the path. A few trees blew down on lake cabins causing considerable damage. No injuries occurred with this event.

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.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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), 169 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:37 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

6 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.