EF3 Tornado — Pratt, Kansas

2008-05-23 · near Sawyer, Pratt, Kansas

Event narrative

This 3/4 mile wide tornado produced EF3 damage and unfortunately claimed two lives. A husband and wife were parked on highway 54 approximately 2 1/4 miles east of Cairo. The tornado picked up their car and carried it approximately 1700 feet NNE into a wheat field (they were not discovered until the next morning at about 9 AM). The female occupant was ejected and was found 30 feet southwest of the wreckage. The male was still strapped in his seat. The car was nearly unrecognizable.

A second vehicle (3/4 ton truck) was parked 20 yards behind the aforementioned car. It also went airborne briefly but got lodged on the north side ditch. The two male occupants received numerous cuts and bruises but were otherwise unhurt. They both claimed it was extremely cold immediately after crawling out of their vehicle with heavy vapor breath noticed.

This tornado destroyed a home about a mile north and the collapsed east wall trapped a male in the bathtub where he had taken cover. Help was needed in lifting the wall off of him but he claimed he was not hurt. Other homes in the tornadoes path received minor to moderate damage.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.4840, -98.6339)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 110644. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.