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| F3 Tornado of Park Falls, WI (Northern Price County) 8 June 1985 |
| Touchdown 6:15pm CST Coordinates: 45d 56m N 90d 28m W 3/4 miles West of Park Falls, WI Moved thru the south-end of Park Falls, crossed Highway 13, the North Fork of the Flambeau River, moved across farmland, crossed Highway 70 and moved into the Chequamegon National Forest. Dissipation Coordinates: 45d 48m N 90d 05m W Lifted 17 miles west of Highway 51, near the intersection of Forest Road 130 and Forest Road 132. |
| Statistics Tornado path length: 21miles Tornado's widest point: 2650 yards Direction Travelled: 116 degrees from true north (ESE) Fujita Rating: F3 (winds 158-206 mph) Dead: 1 Injured: 26 Property Damages: $ 25,000,000.00 |
| My Memories of this Tornado I was 5 years old when this storm ripped through Park Falls, and I have several memories of event. My family and I were looking out our living room, across fields to our south. We watched as a small funnel cloud developed beneath a dark grey cloud south of us. We saw it moving eastward, and it eventually dissapeard behind the trees. That much I remember, and I will always have the image of the funnel cloud in my memory. My grandmother and grandfather lived in Park Falls at the time, and I'm told my grandmother called our house moments later, after they climbed out of the basement. Their house was undamaged, but I do remember walking around town with my grandfather the next day, and I still have memories of seeing garage roofs laying in the lawns, powerline transformers knocked of the poles, and pieces of trees and branches scattered by the winds. Now, many years later, I've gone back to research what information I could find on this tornado. The most interesting thing that I found was not the tornado, but how close the funnel cloud came to our house. I took the Lat/Long coordinates of the touchdown and path, and plotted a course backwards. Five miles before the tornado touched down, is the location we saw the funnel cloud. That location is only one mile south of our house, so much closer than we assumed all the years since the tornado. |