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F1 tornado in Portage County, Wisconsin

Tornado June 23, 2004 · Portage County, Wisconsin

F1
Rating
1.5 mi
Path length
25 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 25 yards (0.01 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

Thunderstorms that developed ahead of a strong cold front that moved through Wisconsin produced severe weather in the central and east central parts of the state during the evening. A line of thunderstorms tore the roof from a barn, downed numerous trees and power lines and blew a pickup truck into a ditch as the storms moved through the Wood county communities of Vesper, Nekoosa, and Wisconsin Rapids. Glass fragments caused a minor injury to one of the occupants of the pickup truck. The storms also produced 7 minutes of dime size hail 1 mile east of Wisconsin Rapids. The storms also damaged several buildings 4 miles west of Stevens Point (Portage co.), downed trees in Saxeville (Waushara co.) and dropped quarter size hail in Plover (Portage co.).As the storms moved through Portage county three tornadoes touched down. One of the tornadoes caused minor tree damage in an industrial park in Whiting. Eyewitnesses observed water being sucked out of a pond at the same time as doors to an office were sucked open. Another tornado downed several trees, knocked down a fence, damaged the roof of a house and damaged some outbuildings as it passed north of Almond. The third tornado was the strongest and was on the ground intermittently for 10 miles from southeast Portage county into southwest Waupaca county. It downed trees and overturned an irrigation system in Portage county. It strengthened in Waupaca county where it scoured asphalt off a road, destroyed a barn, sheared off the top 50 feet of a silo, crushing three calves, damaged a sheet metal outbuilding and killed 3 sheep. It tore the roof from a house and destroyed the garage, overturned a semi trailer and moved it 50 feet, blew hay wagons against trees and snapped off or uprooted numerous trees. Some of the debris from this tornado landed several miles east in the Fremont area (Waupaca co.).A tornado touched down in at least four locations from Little Chute to Kaukauna as the storms moved across Outagamie county. It toppled or twisted large trees, ripped parts of the roofs from residential and commercial buildings, destroyed storage sheds and an old barn and overturned semi trailers and dropped some of them on other vehicles.A brief tornado touchdown also occurred on the west side of Green Bay (Brown co.) where it caused some tree damage.

Began near Almond (44.3000, -89.4167).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

F2 Portage CountyF1 Outagamie CountyF0 Portage CountyF0 Brown County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 5410982. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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