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EF1 tornado in Wood County, Wisconsin

Tornado May 22, 2011 · Wood County, Wisconsin

EF1
Rating
64.5 mi
Whole path
350 yd
Path width
1
Injury
$7.7M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Monroe County → Juneau County → Wood County → Portage County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 350 yards (0.20 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

The tornado moved out of Juneau County at 6:03 pm CDT (1703 CST) and moved east-northeast across southern Wood County. The storm hit a campground on the east shore of the Wisconsin River about three miles south of Nekoosa. Over 100 pine trees were snapped and uprooted on the campground, some two feet in diameter (DI 28 DOD 4). Several camper vehicles were damaged by fallen trees. The tornado was seen by campground visitors just before 6:15 pm. The tornado continued east-northeast and snapped or uprooted hundreds of additional trees south of Wisconsin Rapids. The storm damaged at least six homes and several other outbuildings about six miles south-southeast of Wisconsin Rapids. One of the houses lost the entire roof of a garage (DI 2, DOD 4). A woman in the garage at the time sustained injuries when the garage fell on the truck that she was taking shelter in. This area experienced high-end EF1 damage with winds at least 95 to 105 mph. The tornado entered Portage County at 6:20 PM CDT (1720 CST).

The wider storm

Severe thunderstorms produced high winds, large hail, and a tornado across central and northeast Wisconsin on May 22, 2011. Unstable air combined with a surface boundary and an upper air disturbance to produce thunderstorms. Storms became severe during the afternoon and early evening, causing numerous incidents of large hail and isolated straight-line wind damage. A long-track tornado moved from western Wisconsin into the central part of the state, snapping or uprooting many hundreds of trees and damaging several buildings and farm equipment.

Began near Cranmoor (44.2491, -89.9702).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 313784. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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