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EF0 tornado in Otter Tail County, Minnesota

Tornado June 17, 2010 · Otter Tail County, Minnesota

EF0
Rating
0.2 mi
Path length
15 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

NOAA recorded where this tornado touched down but not where it lifted, so it appears as a point. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

Two persistent wall clouds tracked with periodic funnels from north central Otter Tail County into south central Becker County. One produced a brief tornadic touchdown near Rose Lake in Hobart Township. Peak winds were estimated at 75 mph.

The wider storm

Conditions were ripe by the afternoon of the 17th for a major severe weather outbreak. A surface low had moved into east central North Dakota with an occluded front extending to the southeast. Warm and humid air was in place ahead of the front, with a much drier airmass pushing in behind it. The 500mb low was located over northwest North Dakota with a nice southwest to northeast upper jet pushing into eastern North Dakota. Two lines of convection formed by late afternoon, one from Roseau County down toward Eastern Otter Tail County and the other over east central North Dakota. Nearly all the cells that formed took on a classic hook shape with rotation very evident on radar imagery. Multiple tornado warnings were issued before the event wound down by mid evening. The strongest tornadoes were determined to be EF4 tornadoes, two in west central Minnesota and one in northeast North Dakota.

Began near Vergas (46.6700, -95.7500).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF4 Otter Tail County 1 deadEF4 Otter Tail CountyEF3 Polk County 1 deadEF1 Clearwater CountyEF1 Clearwater CountyEF1 Pennington CountyEF1 Hubbard CountyEF1 Walsh CountyEF1 Clearwater CountyEF1 Polk CountyEF1 Marshall CountyEF1 Polk CountyEF1 Red Lake CountyEF1 Marshall CountyEF1 Otter Tail CountyEF0 Norman CountyEF0 Mahnomen CountyEF0 Wadena CountyEF0 Hubbard CountyEF0 Hubbard CountyEF0 Polk County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 245532. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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