A tornado that first touched down Tuesday night in rural Saline County and stayed on the ground for nearly a half hour before dissipating in rural Ottawa County has been rated an EF-3 by the National Weather Service.

According to the agency the tornado had a peak wind of 140 miles per hour. The half-mile wide tornado touched down 4.5 miles southwest of Tescott. It stayed on the ground for 29 minutes and traveled 14.5 miles before dissipating 2.8 miles west of Minneapolis.

This long-tracked and violent wedge tornado damaged multiple structures along its 14.5 mile long and half mile wide path.

Damage was mostly EF-2 with a small area of EF-3 damage as the tornado began to rope out.

There were no injuries reported.

National Weather Service full preliminary report:

TORNADO - Saline and Ottawa Counties...

RATING:                 EF-3
ESTIMATED PEAK WIND:    140 MPH
PATH LENGTH /STATUTE/:  14.5 MILES
PATH WIDTH /MAXIMUM/:   880 YARDS
FATALITIES:             0
INJURIES:               UNK

START DATE:             May 1, 2018
START TIME:             7:41pm CDT
START LOCATION:         4.5 miles SSW of Tescott

END DATE:               May 1, 2018
END TIME:               8:10pm CDT
END LOCATION:           2.8 miles west of Minneapolis

This longer-tracked and violent wedge tornado damaged multiple 
structures along its 14.5 mile long and half mile wide path. 
Damage was mostly EF-2 with a small area of EF-3 damage as the 
tornado began to rope out.

EF SCALE: THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE CLASSIFIES
TORNADOES INTO THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES.

EF0...WEAK......65 TO 85 MPH
EF1...WEAK......86 TO 110 MPH
EF2...STRONG....111 TO 135 MPH
EF3...STRONG....136 TO 165 MPH
EF4...VIOLENT...166 TO 200 MPH
EF5...VIOLENT...>200 MPH