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EF1 tornado in Douglas County, Minnesota

Tornado June 17, 2010 · Douglas County, Minnesota

EF1
Rating
39.6 mi
Whole path
200 yd
Path width
1
Death
5
Injuries

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Douglas County → Otter Tail County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 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

Numerous trees were broken or snapped, producing EF-1 damage in Douglas County, then the tornado continued into Otter Tail County, where it intensified to EF-4.

The wider storm

Several strong storms developed in west-central Minnesota during the mid afternoon hours of June 17th.

These storms quickly become severe and produced softball size hail northwest of Alexandria and a tornado near Leaf Valley that became the EF-4 that moved through Wadena, Minnesota.

By the late afternoon, numerous thunderstorms developed across southern Minnesota along the leading edge of extreme instability.

Numerous funnel cloud reports and a few brief tornado touchdowns were noted prior to 5 pm, but once the low level shear (0-1 km) increased significantly from 15 knots, to over 35 knots, strong tornadoes developed along the Iowa border.

These storms along the Iowa border produced a series of long-lived tornadoes near Albert Lea, Minnesota. Very large hail also accompanied some tornadoes along with flash flooding.

Began near Leaf Vly (46.0870, -95.4370).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF4 Freeborn County 1 deadEF3 Freeborn CountyEF3 Freeborn CountyEF3 Steele CountyEF2 Faribault CountyEF2 Faribault CountyEF2 Steele CountyEF2 Chisago CountyEF1 Faribault CountyEF1 Freeborn CountyEF1 Freeborn CountyEF1 Freeborn CountyEF1 Wright CountyEF0 Sherburne CountyEF0 Faribault CountyEF0 Faribault CountyEF0 Faribault CountyEF0 Faribault CountyEF0 Faribault CountyEF0 Steele CountyEF0 McLeod CountyEF0 Blue Earth County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 238665. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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