EF2 tornado in Kiowa County, Kansas

Tornado May 23, 2008 · Kiowa County, Kansas

EF2

Rating

17.8 mi

Whole path

760 yd

Path width

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Comanche County → Comanche County → Kiowa County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 760 yards (0.43 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

This tornado moved out of Comanche county and did EF2 damage to trees and power poles. It crossed the path of the tornado that occurred on May 4, 2007.

The wider storm

An anonymously strong upper level system allowed everything to come together at the surface to produced what is perhaps the biggest tornado outbreak to ever occur in the Dodge City CWA! Fifty-five tornadoes were documented during that afternoon and evening! Some of the tornadoes were very large and damaging. The character of the supercell thunderstorms that day had similarities to the storms that produced the Greensburg tornado a little over a year after. In fact there was one tornado that was just as large and perhaps could have been just as damaging that was headed towards the small Kiowa county town but fortunately turned and dissipated.

Began near Mullinville (37.3818, -99.4046).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

50 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 109823. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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