F1 Tornado — Washington, Wisconsin

2006-06-18 · near Hartford, Washington, Wisconsin

Event narrative

This tornado segment is a continuation of the Dodge County segment southeast of Rubicon. This second segment entered Washington County at a location 2.0 miles west of Hartford (about 0.6 mile south of where STH 60 goes east into Dodge Co.) and headed east-southeast through the southern part of the city of Hartford. The tornado strengthened to a high end F1 as it passed through the city. Around 147 residences sustained at least some damage ranging from tree damage to severe structural damage. Ten businesses also sustained structural damage. Lincoln Elementary School's roof was completely destroyed. Estimated damage amounts totaled about 4 million dollars. One person was directly injured by the tornado and two others were indirectly injured. Nobody was killed. The tornado continued east-southeast to a dissipation location 2.7 miles southeast of Hartford (about 0.1 mile southeast of the northern intersection of CTH E and K) at 1339CST. This segment of the tornado track was rated as F1 with winds of 64-97 knots (73-112 mph).

Wider weather episode

On a day one would not expect any tornadoes, a couple tornadoes did manage to spin up in southern Wisconsin. A fairly abnormal weather situation developed during the early afternoon hours of June 18th. After a large area of stratiform rain moved east out of Wisconsin, a line of scattered thunderstorms developed on the western edge of the rain shield. Two storms developed supercellular characteristics and produced a couple tornadoes - one that moved from Dodge County into Washington County, and another brief one in Dane county. In addition, a couple funnel clouds were reported. Specific details of both tornadoes are found above. Synoptically, a trough pushed through south-central and southeast Wisconsin during the late morning and afternoon hours. A moist airmass left behind from morning rain allowed for low cloud base heights. Sufficient low-level vertical wind shear was present for rotating storms. Once rotation was evident in the thunderstorms, tornadoes were easily formed because of low cloud heights and decent low-level CAPE.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (43.3167, -88.4167)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5515439. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.