Tornado outbreak of June 3–4, 1958
weather event in the United States
On June 3–4, 1958, a destructive tornado outbreak, also known as the Chippewa Valley Tornado Outbreak, affected the Upper Midwestern United States. It was the deadliest tornado outbreak in Wisconsin since records began in 1950. The outbreak, which initiated in Central Minnesota, killed at least 28 people, all of whom perished in Northwestern Wisconsin. The outbreak generated a long-lived tornado family that produced four intense tornadoes across the Lower Chippewa Valley, primarily along and near the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers. The deadliest tornado of the outbreak was a destructive F5 that killed 19 people and injured 110 others in and near Colfax, Wisconsin.
Background
Confirmed tornadoes
June 3 event
June 4 event
Colfax, Wisconsin
This large and violent tornado, the deadliest of the outbreak, was the first member in a family of four intense tornadoes that tracked approximately 90 miles (140 km) across four counties, its forward speed averaging 52 miles per hour (84 km/h). The first member of this family began approximately four point seven miles (7.6 km) southwest of Baldwin, Wisconsin, at 6:30 p.m. CDT (23:30 UTC). As it headed generally eastward or east-northeastward, the tornado claimed three lives: one near Wilson and two more just south of Knapp. Entering the northern outskirts of Menomonie, the tornado devastated the small settlement of Cedar Falls, destroying 24 of the 25 homes in that community.
“Tornado outbreak of June 3–4, 1958” enters the record as weather event in the United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tornado, outbreak and June can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4569266. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1958 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tornado outbreak of June 3–4, 1958” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.