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EF3 tornado in Ness County, Kansas

Tornado May 23, 2008 · Ness County, Kansas

EF3
Rating
9.0 mi
Whole path
715 yd
Path width

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 715 yards (0.41 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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 caused EF3 damage to trees and an old stone home. A farm implement was carried 1/2 mile south of it's original starting point. EF3 damage was also done to trees. Another home sustained EF1 damage. There were numerous power poles taken down and at least 5 head of cattle perished in the tornado. The tornado moved into Trego county at 19:42 CDT.

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 Osgood (38.6085, -99.8761).

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 110704. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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