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EF0 tornado in Stearns County, Minnesota

Tornado July 17, 2010 · Stearns County, Minnesota

EF0
Rating
0.1 mi
Path length
30 yd
Path width
$50K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 30 yards (0.02 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. 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

About one dozen trees, and some large branches, were broken or toppled. Minor damage to several houses was noted.

The wider storm

The atmosphere became very unstable Saturday afternoon, and along with a strong wind shear, aided in the development of very large hail, isolated tornadoes and significant straight-line wind damage.

The first storm developed near Alexandria and moved southeast along Interstate 94 before dying in the southwest part of the Twin Cities late that afternoon. Numerous reports of very large hail, up to the size of softballs, occurred near St. Cloud, southeast to Watertown.

The next area of severe storms developed across central Minnesota, and far west-central Minnesota and moved east and southeast toward east-central Minnesota where a strong bow echo developed and moved across the northern portion of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area.

There was widespread damage along the leading edge of this bow echo where numerous trees, power lines and homes were either uprooted, blown down, or destroyed.

These storms moved into west-central Wisconsin and also caused damage to trees before weakening toward the late evening.

Began near Waite Park (45.5449, -94.2428).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF0 Washington CountyEF0 Morrison CountyEF0 Wright County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 247512. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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