EF0 tornado, Leon, Wisconsin, May 19, 2022

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

May 19, 2022

Touchdown

8:20 PM CDT (01:20 UTC)

Lifted

8:21 PM CDT (01:21 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

60 yards (55 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$90,000

County

Monroe County

Touchdown point

43.888, -90.747

Lift-off point

43.889, -90.741

Record number

2205191920-01

4 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.

• Camper lifted and destroyed

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

Severe storms moved across western Wisconsin during the evening of May 19th and produced a brief tornado, some damaging winds, and large hail. An EF0 tornado occurred southeast of Sparta (Monroe County) and destroyed a camper and outbuilding along with damaging farm equipment and trees. The automated weather observing equipment at the La Crosse (La Crosse County) airport measured a 62 mph gust and a roof was damaged near Barre Mills (La Crosse County). Most of the hail that fell was quarter sized or smaller and the largest reported was golf ball sized in Holmen (La Crosse County). Around 3,800 customers were without power in La Crosse after the storms rolled through.

A brief EF0 tornado touched down east of Leon and was only on the ground for about a quarter-mile before dissipating. The tornado tossed and destroyed a camper along with damaging an outbuilding, house, farm machinery and trees. Some of the downed trees were along the Elroy-Sparta state bike trail.

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 20:22 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:36 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), 37 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 2022 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.