EF1 tornado, Dekorra, Wisconsin, July 28, 2021

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 28, 2021

Touchdown

12:10 AM CDT (05:10 UTC)

Lifted

12:13 AM CDT (05:13 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.3 miles (3.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Columbia County

Touchdown point

43.497, -89.489

Lift-off point

43.479, -89.451

Record number

2107282310-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MKX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• 84 trailer units destroyed

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

A round of severe storms tracked into southwest Wisconsin during the early morning hours on July 28th. Followed by another round of stronger, more widespread thunderstorms that begin to dive south across central Wisconsin late in the evening on July 28th through the early morning hours on July 29th.

This was 1 of 17 tornadoes to occur in Wisconsin on the night of July 28th into the early morning hours of July 29th. This was the 5th overall tornado for the event.|A line of storms developed in northern Wisconsin and pushed south into southern Wisconsin in the overnight hours of the 28th into the 29th of July with mainly brief tornadoes and damaging winds occurring.||This tornado began in the Baraboo River Waterfowl Production Area just north of the I-94/I-39 split south of Portage. The tornado crossed the interstate and hit the I-39 Supply facility where 84 trailers were damaged or destroyed. The tornado continued to the southeast where it caused extensive tree damage through mainly rural areas. The last area of noted damage was to a large metal farming shed north of Thunderbird Drive.

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 00:22 UTC and running to 07:00 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 01:04 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.

Dells/Baraboo (DLL), 25 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Milwaukee radar (KMKX), 94 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:08 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 2021 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.