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EF0 tornado in Vernon County, Wisconsin

Tornado July 18, 2019 · Vernon County, Wisconsin

EF0
Rating
0.5 mi
Path length
25 yd
Path width
$40K
Damage as recorded
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 EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

A brief tornado touched down northeast of Westby. A barn was destroyed, a trailer flipped and numerous trees damaged.

The wider storm

Several rounds of thunderstorms moved across western Wisconsin during the late evening of July 18th into the early morning hours of July 19th. As the initial round of storms moved through, a brief tornado touched down northeast of Westby (Vernon County). The tornado destroyed a barn, flipped a trailer and damaged numerous trees. A fatal accident occurred near Whitehall (Trempealeau County) during the storms. Authorities indicated that weather was likely a factor in a head-on two vehicle crash. Rainfall totals from the storms ranged from 3 to 5 inches across portions of La Crosse, Monroe and Vernon Counties that resulted in some flash flooding. Campers had to be evacuated from the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. Flood waters covered County Road P north of Coon Valley (Vernon County) and east of Westby (Vernon County) where a mudslide also occurred. U.S. Highway 14 was closed near Coon Valley where flood waters from Coon Creek covered the road. The initial storms also produced some 60 mph wind gusts near Mindoro (La Crosse County) and Tomah (Monroe County) and blew down trees near Barre Mills (La Crosse County).

Began near Bloomingdale (43.6952, -90.7599).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 842734. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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