EF2 Tornado — Emmons, North Dakota

2025-09-14 · near Linton, Emmons, North Dakota

Event narrative

Initial damage near the start of the tornado consisted of crop damage. The tornado then travelled northwest to a farmstead where it dented in the south facing side of a large, mostly empty grain bin. It then proceeded to destroy an 80 by 124 foot pole barn to the north. Inside the barn, farm equipment was damaged including a combine which had the south facing door to barn resting on it. Debris was scattered in all directions and several hundred feet away. Large pieces of board from the destroyed building were embedded in the ground including part of a rafter. There was limited tree damage to the row of trees to the north of this property. The tornado then progressed to the north before dissipating. Based on the damage done this tornado was rated EF-2, and from that wind speeds were estimated to be around 120 mph.

Wider weather episode

A low-pressure center moved north from South Dakota to North Dakota with a warm front lifting to the north. This resulted in strong low-level wind shear over central North Dakota. This shear combined with low cloud bases caused by a high amount of moisture in the lower atmosphere to produce multiple low-topped supercells which produced a low amount of lighting. From these supercells, 20 tornadoes developed over central North Dakota which moved in a generally southerly to northerly direction. Two tornadoes produced EF-2 damage. Near Denhoff in Sheridan County, multiple buildings including mobile homes and farm out-buildings were severely damaged along the tornado path, along with damage to many trees and some vehicles. This multi-vortex tornado had a total path length of approximately 13 miles. The second area of EF-2 tornado damage was about 13 miles west of Linton in Emmons County, where a barn was destroyed near Beaver Bay. Two other tornadoes produced EF-1 damage. Near Menoken in Burleigh County, there was damage to trees and the roof of a farm outbuilding. Near Mercer in McLean County, a pole barn was partially destroyed, and a mobile home on wheels was destroyed. Numerous other tornadoes occurred with no damage to evaluate. By National Weather Service policy, those tornadoes were rated EF-U (Unknown). Otherwise, no damaging straight-line winds were reported, and the only large hail reported was one inch in diameter, which occurred near Balfour in McHenry County. In addition, flash flooding occurred over parts of Burleigh and Morton Counties as a result of the heavy rain from the storms. Many vehicles were stranded in Bismarck as multiple roads were underwater, and in Morton County several rural roads had water flowing over.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (46.2740, -100.5240)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1294423. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.