EF1 tornado in Burleigh County, North Dakota

This is the first of two tornadoes that occurred to the north of Bismarck. The tornado developed just north of a residence, and slowly moved to the south-southeast. As it moved through the residence lot, the tornado caused significant roof damage to an outbuilding and toppled a covered trailer. In addition, a few softwood and hardwood trees were snapped or uprooted. As the tornado moved south over 110th Avenue Northwest, it snapped several large branches off a large cottonwood tree in the south ditch. The tornado then continued to move south before dissipating. Based on the damage done this tornado was rated EF-1, and from that wind speeds were estimated to be around 95 mph.

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.