Tornado damage shows wind speed

MARQUETTE COUNTY - This is from first spot-buffalo lake "Were you here when the storm hit?"
Rusty Kapela is an investigator of sorts.
"You're looking at all of the evidence, every little piece of evidence."
He gathers evidence of what Mother Nature leaves behind.
"We can't say what happened sitting back at the office."
Kapela is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sullivan. But he's hitting the road...in Marquette County to survey storm damage...
"It's up to us to verify what happened."
His first stop - a cottage on Buffalo Lake. The owners live in Sun Prairie... but the downed tree is witness enough for Kapela.
"A tornado wasn't exactly here but this would be more like inflow into the top part, or north side of the storm. The actual tornado track, I suspect, based on the radar, actually is further south from this point."
Further South...
"... it just has that look..."
Kapela finds evidence of a low-level tornado...
"These are not rotten... these are in the prime of their life... whatever that phrase is... "
Healthy trees shredded, facing every direction.
"This would indicate more of a tornadic damage."
Around the corner... pictures captured the coming storm...
"It was bad yesterday... field about flat."
And Sharon Crook's place confirms Kapela's suspicions!
"We turned around... heard crack, crack, crack... there she went."
Crook's 100-year-old tree... narrowly missed her home.
"Especially when you have healthy trees uprooted... in different directions... very indicative of tornadic damage."
But Kapela will use the evidence on the ground, eyewitness testimony and the radar picture to make an official determination.
"Luckily about 80-85 percent of tornadoes are weak... say that to the person who has a tree on the house."