Because the month of June tends to bring us the most rainfall, along with that comes unstable and sometimes violent weather in the form of hurricane-force winds and tornadoes.
While states like Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska get more tornadoes historically than North Dakota, we get plenty of them in any given year.
Tornadoes are labeled in intensity from zero to five. Since 1950, there have been three EF-5 tornadoes in North Dakota. One was at Fort Rice in 1953, but is considered by the National Weather Service as an Emmons County tornado, even though Fort Rice is in Morton County. The second was in Fargo in 1957 and the third was in Elgin in 1978.
All 53 counties in North Dakota have experienced tornadoes since 1950. Mountrail, Hettinger, Grant, Burleigh, Kidder, Stutsman, Barnes, Richland, Traill, Grand Forks and Pembina counties have all experienced EF-4 tornadoes.
Divide, Burke, Bottineau, Rolette, Towner, Williams, Ward, Benson, Nelson, Steele, Griggs, Wells, McLean, Mercer, Golden Valley, Stark, Logan, McIntosh, LaMoure and Sargent have had EF-3 funnels.
EF-2 tornadoes were recorded in Renville, McHenry, Pierce, Ramsey, Cavalier, Walsh, Eddy, Foster, Dunn, McKenzie, Oliver, Bowman, Ransom and Dickey counties.
EF-1 tornadoes were the least plentiful and were recorded in Sheridan, Billings, Slope, Adams and Sioux counties. EF-0 tornadoes happen as well, but rarely do damage other than broken tree limbs.
Since 1950, our state has experienced 1,680 tornadoes, with the total number of counties touched by those tornadoes at 1,740. That gives us an average of 22.5 tornadoes per season. Thirty-eight percent of the time, tornadoes are recorded in June, 32 percent of the time in July, 16 percent in August, 11 percent in May, 2 percent in September and 1 percent in April.
Sometimes a tornado will touch down, rise and then touch down in another county. That’s why the total number of counties exceed the total number of tornadoes.
Since 1950, 27 fatalities and 388 injuries have been attributed to tornadoes. The earliest annual tornado happened March 26, 2003 in Stutsman County and the latest was Nov. 1, 2000 in Bismarck. The most tornadoes in a year were 61 in 1999, the least were two in 1950-51 and 1961. The most tornadoes in a calendar day were 24 on June 11, 1976.
In addition to tornadoes, severe thunderstorms often bring damaging wind and hail. In that respect, every county has experienced hail and high wind.
Keep in mind, hurricanes are measured by the force of the wind. Much like tornadoes, they are measured on a scale from one to five, beginning with category 1 at 74-95 miles per hour. Every county has experienced the equivalent of a category 1 hurricane.
Although North Dakota has never experienced a category 5 hurricane-equivalent wind speed, two counties have experienced “category 4,” which is considered catastrophic by the National Weather Service. Slope County has had the highest-ever wind speed in the state at 143 mph, while Mercer County recorded a 130 mph wind speed.
Sargent, Grant, Dickey and McLean have all experienced the equivalent of a category 2 hurricane, which typically cause extensive damage.
Hail can also have a devastating effect, especially on cropland. And again, all 53 counties have experienced large and damaging hail since 1950.
Mercer and Sioux, however, are the only two counties that have seen 5-inch diameter hail. A grapefruit is approximately 5-inches in diameter and a baseball is 2.86 inches in diameter. That said, every county has had at least baseball-size hail.
