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EF0 tornado in Kent County, Michigan

Tornado September 11, 2019 · Kent County, Michigan

EF0
Rating
0.1 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 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

Apartment building on Fairview Ave NE just east of Division Street had roofed peeled off. Roof landed on homes immediately to the east of the apartment building.

The wider storm

A quasi linear convective system (QLCS) produced wind damage along a fifty mile long and a half to 5 mile swath that cut through parts of downtown Grand Rapids. Significant wind damage was observed within to just east of the city. The most intense damage occurred at Belknap apartments in downtown Grand Rapids where two thirds of the roof was ripped off of the three story complex. There was also scattered tree damage and a few shingles missing from houses near the apartment complex. A microburst containing winds of up to around 100 mph caused the damage. Additional significant damage was noted about 1.5 miles east of the Belknap apartments where several buildings incurred significant damage. Hundreds of trees were either snapped off or uprooted.

Began near Grand Rapids (42.9723, -85.6682).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 863127. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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