EF2 tornado, North Lowell to Lomira, Wisconsin, May 15, 2025

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 15, 2025

Touchdown

5:57 PM CDT (22:57 UTC)

Lifted

6:08 PM CDT (23:08 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

8.3 miles (13.3 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$3.4 million

County

Dodge County

Touchdown point

43.481, -88.598

Lift-off point

43.544, -88.457

Record number

2505151657-01

153 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MKX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Extensive tree damage on property southeast of Juneau. Large tree trunks snapped around property and trees uprooted. Damage done to metal roof of house, likely from trees that fell on it. A few windows broken.
• Start of second tornado path from north of Lighthouse Road to Juneau, WI
• Minor damage to a tree line on the west side of County Road AI north of Oak Grove.
• Separate damage area northeast of the roundabout.

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

One of the bigger tornado events for southern WI over the past 10-15 years with 2 EF-2s occurring and 8 tornadoes in total. Juneau and Mayville took the brunt of the two strong tornadoes, while hundreds of large hail reports and several damaging wind reports were received across southern WI. A strong cold front, extending from strong low pressure over eastern North Dakota, combined with very unstable air and strong wind shear to bring widespread severe thunderstorms to the region.

Extensive damage path from this tornado which started southwest of Juneau, went through the north side of downtown Juneau, to the south of Horicon, hitting the Horicon Hills Golf Club, before ending east of Horicon along Highway 33. The most intense damage was in the city of Juneau where about 10 structures hit EF-2 levels of damage. The one minor injury from this tornado occurred in downtown Juneau where a man was sleeping in his bedroom when the roof blew off and a tree fell into the house. The Clearview facility had windows blown out and one housing building lost it's roof. Another residential building, which looked like a motel, lost a long section of its roof, but was poorly attached to the frame of the building. An empty silo was buckled on the east end of Home Rd with one cow having a two by four impaled into its back. At the Horicon Hill Golf Club, 165 trees were either uprooted or damaged extensively. Numerous golf carts were tipped or displaced and the main club house sustained extensive roof damage.

Tornado began on the north end of the Dodge County Airport, damaging 5 airport hangars and one airplane. The tornado continued east and went through the far south side of Horicon near River Bend Park, causing mainly tree damage along the rest of its path along with some minor barn and housing damage.

Tornado began southwest of Mayville just west of Highway 28 which was also captured on video as a potential multi-vortex tornado. Some of the more intense damage occurred shortly after the tornado developed and crossed County Rd TW on into southwest Mayville in an industrial area. A farmhouse on Cty RW lost a portion of its roof and some farm sheds. The tornado then moved through the industrial area in southwest Mayville. The Mayville Engineering Company was hit on its northwest corner. The winds from the tornado breached a large garage door on the west side which then pushed the large north end wall down. The tornado then went through the Gleason Reel Corporation and destroyed the southern portion of the building. It then went through a neighborhood near the St. John/Graceland cemetary before crossing Main St/Rock River. The tornado then went through the east side of Mayville near the Mayville Golf Course. It then continued to the northeast through mainly rural areas before ending NW of Theresa.

Damage began northeast of the roundabout for Highway 28 and 175 which is separate from the Mayville tornado. Damage was mainly to trees along this path that crossed Interstate 41.

Tornado started southwest of Lomira and north of County Rd AH. While briefly on the ground, it destroyed a barn west of Highway 67.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

31 minutes of warning. NWS MKX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:26 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:07 UTC and running to 00:51 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:27 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 Milwaukee radar (KMKX), 61 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:54 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 2025 tornado in WisconsinEvery tornado in Wisconsin since 1950Warnings in force in Wisconsin nowThe forecast where you are

34 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.