6-17 North Dakota Tornadoes: Owen Tornado Rated EF4

The tornado that ripped through eastern North Dakota June 17th has been rated as EF4 with peak winds of approximately 185 mph.  Fortunately the tornado occurred in mainly rural areas but it did completely destroy the Dahl Farm west of Thompson, ND.  Unfortunately I believe I may have video of the tornado doing it’s worst damage but I’m not quite sure if it is debris from the the Dahl Farm or just trees along a tree row.  I was out that way earlier today and we saw trees that were literally snapped off at the base and the top part nowhere to be found.

Here is a radar image and a screen shot from the video of what I believe to be around the same time the tornado was near the Dahl’s home.

TJ Hooker (click on image for full size)

You can see the classic hook on the supercell and at the tip of that appendage there looks like a circular echo or ball.  This could be a debris ball caused by the radar picking up all of the debris the tornado was kicking up.  I was amazed in person to see things bigger than cars (from a distance) being tossed up into the air with ease thus it’s no surprise the radar would pick up on those massive chunks.  Below is an image of approximately the same time.

This is what an EF4 can do. (click for higher resolution)

If you click on the image the pieces of debris become more obvious.  If you look at the upper right area of the tornado circulation, you can see a large object very high in the air.  Now if you look at the tornado on the ground and use one of those trees as a scaling measure, that large object in the air was lofted 6-7 trees high.  Again I’m not sure if this is just trees or what but it shows you what an EF4 tornado can do.  Thankfully no one was injured with this storm and it’s track remained in mainly rural areas.  It could have been much worse.

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One Response to “6-17 North Dakota Tornadoes: Owen Tornado Rated EF4”

  1. Owen Dahl says:

    I never would have thought I’d have a tornado named after me, not exactly a good thing but I’ll accept it. Interesting to see the radar image of the tornado that hit my home. My wife and I were in awe of the tornado as it locked on to the tree row and followed it to our property, I knew as soon as it started following the trees, our home was in danger of being destroyed. Deb and I had about 45 seconds to realize that all we had was about to be obliterated. Thankfully my business was left intact. Thanks for putting the info out there.

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