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EF1 tornado in Portage County, Wisconsin

Tornado May 22, 2011 · Portage County, Wisconsin

EF1
Rating
64.5 mi
Whole path
700 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 700 yards (0.40 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 entered Portage County from Wood County at 6:20 pm CDT (1720 CST) mainly over farmland. The twister continued to snap trees (DI 28, DOD 4) and overturn agricultural irrigation systems. About six miles south of Plover, a nearly half-mile long row of power poles were bent over (DI 24, DOD 3). The tornado crossed Interstate 39 at Coddington Road two miles west of Keene. The tornado grew to nearly 700 yards wide as it passed just north of Keene and heavily damaged a farmstead. A silo was damaged and barn flattened (DI 1, DOD 6). Several outbuildings were also damaged or destroyed. Along the path, at least two dozen irrigation systems were overturned and damaged (resulting in over $1 million in losses) and many hundreds of trees snapped or uprooted. This area also experienced high-end EF1 damage with winds of 100 to 110 mph. The tornado dissipated about nine miles southeast of Plover at about 6:46 pm (1746 CST). The average path width was 300 yards.

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 Kellner (44.2948, -89.7247).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 313786. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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