Wisconsin tornadoes confirmed, Evansville storm damage surveyed
ROCK COUNTY, Wis. - The National Weather Service confirmed two Wisconsin tornadoes from Thursday's severe storm system. It is the first time a February tornado has ever been confirmed in the state.
In a news conference Friday, officials confirmed an EF-1 tornado in Green County and an EF-2 tornado near Evansville in Rock County. The EF-2 may be upgraded to an EF-3 once more data is analyzed.
Emergency crews were set up in a grocery store parking lot Friday as investigators continued to assess the damage. The sheriff also warned it could be days before everyone in Evansville gets their power back.
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"Our ears popped right before it hit, and then it was just unbelievably loud," said Rock County resident Denver Reese, whose home was heavily damaged. "The sky was just lighting up. It took a minute to register that our whole roof is gone."
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Reese's home was among the 20 or more that were damaged or destroyed during the storm. In the tornado's path were flipped tractors and silos bent like tin cans. The Rock County Sheriff's Office verified structure damage ranging from minor to major, as well as debris that closed area roadways.
"We have trees down, we have power lines down. When this came through last night it was very dark, so we have not had a good chance to assess all the damage. Made the decision to close these roads for everybody," said Capt. Mark Thompson, Rock County Sheriff’s Office.
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As soon as daylight arrived, the National Weather Service started its assessment. Tim Halbach with the National Weather Service said the EF-2 tornado in Rock County had 135 mph winds. Rock County Sheriff Curtis Fell said it's a miracle only one person was taken to the hospital because of the storm.
"She was standing in the middle of the living room when the roof left. The fact that she wasn’t more severely hurt is phenomenal," said Fell.
February first
The Wisconsin tornadoes in the usually frigid month of February came on a day that broke records for warmth, setting up the perfect scenario for the type of severe weather normally seen in the late spring and summer.
"There wasn't anything inherently unusual about any of these storms when you compare them to other types of severe events we see during the summer and spring," said meteorologist Taylor Patterson."It’s just unusual in the sense that it doesn’t normally happen in February."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that between 1998 and 2022, 31 states across a broad swatch of the country, from Washington state in the northwest to New Mexico in the south, Wisconsin in the Upper Midwest over to Maine in the northeast, didn’t report a single tornado.
But winter tornadoes – like the one in Wisconsin – are likely to be stronger and stay on the ground longer with a wider swath of destruction in a warming world, a 2021 study showed. That comes after a 2018 study found that tornadoes were moving farther east, into states like Wisconsin.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.