EF2 Tornado — Rock, Wisconsin

2024-02-08 · near Magnolia, Rock, Wisconsin

Event narrative

Beginning section of the second tornado to ever occur in February in Wisconsin. Storm chaser/spotter/public videos show the tornado beginning around 5:39pm south of Evansville. The tornado intensified as it tracked to the east of Evansville where it impacted 30 primary residences (2 destroyed, 10 major impacts, 13 minor impacts, 5 affected). Numerous barns and outbuildings were destroyed along the path as it tracked to the northwest of Edgerton. The main EF-2 damage was confined to a stretch from east of Evansville to just southwest of the Yahara River. There was one person in a car that was hit by the tornado that had injuries serious enough to warrant transportation to the hospital, but they were deemed minor and released. Almost every person that was impacted by the tornado that the damage surveyors talked to said that they received the warning via Wireless Emergency Alert on their cell phone and then went to their shelter to gather more information via TV, radio, social media. County wide estimates of damage was at about $2.5 million.

Wider weather episode

A historic tornado event for Wisconsin as the first documented tornado occurred in the month of February. An approaching cold front and upper level disturbance initiated the severe thunderstorms from late afternoon into the early evening. An EF-1 tornado occurred in Green County near Juda/Albany and then a second tornado developed which was stronger and produced EF-2 level damage. The long track tornado impacted 30 houses and numerous barns and outbuildings. Only 1 injury occurred when the tornado hit someone driving a car near Hwy 14 and Territorial Rd. A high volume of hail also occurred with these storms, but the largest hailstone were generally just at or above severe levels.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (42.7242, -89.3316)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1153884. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.