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EF2 tornado in Outagamie County, Wisconsin

Tornado April 10, 2011 · Outagamie County, Wisconsin

EF2
Rating
1.5 mi
Path length
175 yd
Path width
$6.7M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 175 yards (0.10 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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

A fast moving tornado touched down in the southwest side of Kaukauna near County Road CE at 8:43 pm CDT (1743 CST). The tornado cut through the center of a subdivision as it moved north-northeast to near the Fox River before lifting off the ground. Seven homes were destroyed, 24 homes and four businesses sustained major damage, and 160 other homes sustained minor damage. Several houses lost large sections of their roofs (DI 2, DOD 6) in the hardest hit area of the city. The average path width was 125 yards.

The wider storm

Thunderstorms developed along and ahead of a cold front as it encountered moist and unstable air across Wisconsin.

A record number of tornadoes for April struck Wisconsin on April 10. Fifteen twisters affected the state as a strong spring storm moved across the western Great Lakes. In the National Weather Service Green Bay service area of northeast Wisconsin, ten tornadoes were reported, a record single-day outbreak for any month of the year.

In addition to the tornadoes, the lines of thunderstorms that developed produced plenty of straight line wind damage and large hail. Wind gusts, some estimated in the 80 mph to 100 mph range, downed numerous trees, damaged a small building, caused an injury and damage to two homes, toppled an 80-foot tall radio tower, threw a carport two houses away, and caused major damage to two industrial buildings. The largest hail reported was baseball size near Winneconne in Winnebago County.

Began near Kaukauna (44.2578, -88.2881).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 285307. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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