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F1 tornado in Marathon County, Wisconsin

Tornado April 18, 2002 · Marathon County, Wisconsin

F1
Rating
14.0 mi
Path length
100 yd
Path width
$1.4M
Damage as recorded
$32K
Crop damage
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 F1 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F1 meant moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken; the scale paired it with winds of 73–112 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

The wider storm

A warm front across Wisconsin lifted north during the afternoon and evening. Moist and very unstable air south of the front led to the development of severe thunderstorms. The storms produced 5 tornadoes, damaging straight line winds, large hail and some flooding.Brief tornado touchdowns in Lincoln county, Oneida county and Marathon county snapped numerous trees. Marathon county had hundreds of trees downed and numerous barns and farm sheds destroyed by a combination of straight line winds and a tornado that remained on the ground for 14 miles. Plows had to be used in Marathon county to clear trees from some of the roads.Other storms across central, north-central and east-central Wisconsin downed numerous trees, dropped hail as large as 3 inches in diameter, in Lincoln county, and flooded roads and basements in the Niagara (Marinette co.) and Rhinelander (Oneida co.) areas.

Began near Stratford (44.9333, -90.0167).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

F0 Lincoln CountyF0 Oneida CountyF0 Oneida CountyF0 Marathon County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 5293645. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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