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EF1 tornado in Burleigh County, North Dakota

Tornado September 14, 2025 · Burleigh County, North Dakota

EF1
Rating
2.7 mi
Path length
100 yd
Path width
$30K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

The tornado touched down east of Menoken, then traveled northwest across Interstate 94 where it struck a farmstead. At this location, the tornado ripped off the roof of an old pole barn and tossed it into nearby trees. The tornado then continued to the northwest where it impacted another property, causing shingle damage to a single-wide mobile home, and some 75 year old trees had either large branches down or were fully uprooted. Based on the damage done this tornado was rated EF-1, and from that wind speeds were estimated to be around 95 mph.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Hazelton (46.8200, -100.5010).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

18 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1294528. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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