EF1 Tornado — Emmons, North Dakota

2025-06-27 · near Temvik, Emmons, North Dakota

Event narrative

This was the first of two tornadoes that struck the Temvik area. The tornado formed in an open field just to the southwest of a farmstead before moving northeast. The tornado then crossed a road and knocked over a power pole before impacting the farmstead. The home suffered damage to the siding and roof, along with a slight shift in the foundation. The tornado also destroyed a few outbuildings anchored with chains, and significantly damaged a large quonset building. In addition, a large stainless-steel flatbed trailer was tossed around 250 yards, and another smaller trailer was tossed around 350 yards before landing in a grove of trees. The tornado continued to move to the northeast, snapping some hardwood trees in a shelterbelt before lifting. Based on the damage done this tornado was rated EF-1, and from that wind speeds were estimated to be around 110 mph.

Wider weather episode

Thunderstorms developed during the evening hours over central North Dakota in a very unstable environment, with several becoming supercells. Initially, very large hail was the main threat, but as the episode continued, tornadic development became the primary concern from any storms, with a total of nine tornadoes occurring. The first tornado touched down southwest of Hannover in Oliver County, and less than an hour later another tornado developed north of Crown Butte Lake in northeast Morton County. Then, after approximately an hour and a half, seven tornadoes were reported in the span of one hour, from around 10:12 to 11:12 PM CDT, in Burleigh, Kidder, and Emmons Counties. The most damaging tornado, which was rated an EF-2, impacted a farmstead west of Temvik in Emmons County causing significant damage. Two notable tornadoes touched down just to the north of the city of Bismarck which were highly visible, but one only caused limited damage. In addition to the tornadoes, these storms produced very large hail. The largest hail reported was 3.5 inches in diameter in Oliver County near Hannover, which fell from the same storm that produced the first tornado in Oliver County. North of Bismarck, extensive damage occurred due to hail up to the size of baseballs falling in multiple rural subdivisions earlier in the evening before the tornadic storm arrived. Many hail reports were received from the ICECHIP (In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains) project in the area.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (46.3422, -100.3391)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1270547. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.