MPR’s Linda Peinovich interviews meteorologist John Graff, who describes the path and destruction of tornado that struck areas of Twin Cities on June 14, 1981. Graff notes that it was a singular tornado that made a straight line through the metro.
Known later by various names ("Har Mar Tornado," "Lake Harriet Tornado," or "Edina Tornado"), the F3 tornado was the most significant to hit the Twin Cities since the 1965 Fridley Mounds-View tornadoes. The path of the June 14, 1981 tornado was continuous for 15 miles over a 26-minute period. One of the hardest hit areas was the Har Mar Mall area. While the mall itself escaped serious damage; other businesses and homes in the area were hit hard. elf escaped serious damage; other businesses and homes in the area were hit hard.
Transcripts
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SPEAKER 1: The basic storm damage primarily, of course, along the tornado track that began a few minutes before 4 o'clock just Southwest of the intersection of France Avenue and 50th. It continued directly and for a continuous path to make one tornado and not three for a distance of 15 miles, ending just southeast of Lake Owosso, which is just barely west of Little Canada, up in the northeast. So we were talking in terms of 26 minutes of path length and a little just a bit over 15 miles of continuous path length.
In flying the survey today, we found as little damage as 75 yards wide in tree tops, down to damage two and half blocks wide in the area from Roseville northeastward up to Lake Owosso. Primarily, the major damage that occurred certainly was East of the main river area, Mississippi River area, extending probably starting in the Falcon Heights area extending northeastward right up into or just west of the Little Canada area.
Southwest of that line from the river southwestward to the beginning point in the southwestern Medina area, of course, we saw individual paths up to an eight of a block to a quarter of a block wide there, with individual homes and tree tops and trees being down in that area. And as we got into the area farther northeast, where it passed over building structures, we saw many, many rooftops that were damaged or stripped.
And when we got into Saint Paul and got over to the Sears building across there, we saw damage across the whole wide face, which had to be at least 300 yards in width there, and extensive roof damage and wide face damage to the building itself, where some of the stronger winds hit. This was quite similar. We also passed the main railroad track intersection. And overflying that, we saw a couple of boxcars over on their side. And we certainly saw a tree damage on either side of the railroad tracks as well, where some very, very strong winds came through.
Now, we feel that in the areas where it was touching the tree tops, the wind speeds were probably around 80 miles an hour. And where it was digging down into the ground and causing the extensive widespread damage, winds up to 160 or perhaps 180 miles an hour and the tornadic activity itself. But saying again the line was continuous, not discontinuous. And therefore, we are now officially classifying this as one tornado, 15 miles in length, and 26 minutes in time.
SPEAKER 2: Is there a scale where you measure a tornado's intensity? And were you able to pinpoint this on such a scale today?
SPEAKER 1: Yes, we were. As a matter of fact, the basic scales of wind speed as versus damage starting up in the high 80s and 90s up to around 110 would be right around a scale of 1 approaching 120, or 130, or a little bit more begins to approach a scale of 2. And where we saw some of the extensive widespread damage, we felt we got 140 to 160 mile an hour circular winds at that point. And therefore, we would say the major portion of the track was on a scale of 1 with about one quarter of the track, very near a scale of 2.
SPEAKER 2: What's the top of the scale? What's the worst possible?
SPEAKER 1: [INAUDIBLE] the scale, actually, we're running up pretty close to a six classification. And that is just total devastation. And then you're talking about winds in excess of 300 miles an hour. It was a perfectly straight line in our helicopter flight today that we conducted. The heading remained the same all the way through. It's just as if we put it on a drawing board and drew the line.