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EF0 tornado in Freeborn County, Minnesota

Tornado June 26, 2025 · Freeborn County, Minnesota

EF0

Rating

5.2 mi

Path length

75 yd

Path width

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The path drawn at its surveyed width of 75 yards (0.04 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A storm chaser took video of a tornado near its beginning, just northwest of Twin Lakes. It moved across two farms, tree groves, and fields. At the farms, two sheds were damaged from falling trees. The tornado entered the southeast edge of Albert Lea, taking down more trees and destroying a chicken coop. A trailer was knocked over before the tornado dissipated. Drone video of the damage in the southeast side of Albert Lea was reviewed. The maximum wind speed was estimated at 80 mph.

The wider storm

A large scale mid-to-upper-level trough was moving across the northern plains on the afternoon of June 26th. Immediately ahead of this progressing wave was a mesoscale convective vortex moving out of the Missouri River Valley. Ahead of this MCV was a warm front that supplied sufficient shear and low-level moisture across southern Minnesota into northern Iowa. A low topped supercell developed within a line of thunderstorms stretched along the I-35 corridor.

An EF-0 tornado developed just northwest of Twin Lakes and traveled over five miles and was approximately 75 yds wide. Maximum winds were estimated to be 80 mph, damaging two farm sheds before destroying farm outbuildings and overturning a trailer.

Began near Twin Lakes (43.5737, -93.4336).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1264844. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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