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EF1 tornado in Shiawassee County, Michigan

Tornado May 29, 2011 · Shiawassee County, Michigan

EF1

Rating

3.3 mi

Whole path

100 yd

Path width

$75K

Damage as recorded

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

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

A tornado which originated in Ingham county crossed into Shiawassee county near LoveJoy and Locke Roads at 528 PM, tracking northeast for around three miles, ending at Beard and Ruppert Roads at 532 pm. The damage path was about 100 yards wide. Damage was mostly soft and hard wood trees uprooted and snapped, with estimated max wind speed of 90 mph, making this Tornado an EF1.

The wider storm

A thunderstorm complex rolled through southeast Michigan during the peak heating of the day, resulting in scattered wind damage reports across the area. Embedded circulations within the line of thunderstorms lead to localized wind gusts to 80 mph, with even one confirmed tornado over southern Shiawassee county.

Began near Shaftsburg (42.7759, -84.2676).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 295103. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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