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EF1 tornado in Lane County, Kansas

Tornado May 23, 2008 · Lane County, Kansas

EF1

Rating

8.1 mi

Path length

1,220 yd

Path width

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The path drawn at its surveyed width of 1,220 yards (0.69 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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 produced EF1 damage to two pivot irrigation sprinklers and to power poles.

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 Dighton Arpt (38.4470, -100.5390).

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 109879. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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