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EF2 tornado in Greenwood County, Kansas

Tornado April 16, 2024 · Greenwood County, Kansas

EF2
Rating
2.7 mi
Path length
116 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 116 yards (0.07 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

The damage survey revealed an EF2 tornado with an estimated peak wind speed of 118 mph occurred south of Virgil. There was damage to a farmstead to a large outbuilding that was ripped from its sturdy foundation and had bent steel purlins. Several large trees were snapped and uprooted.

The wider storm

A powerful upper level low pressure system moved out across the Plains during the evening of April 15th and the early morning hours of Tuesday April 16th. Storms developed ahead of an advancing cold front across Oklahoma into the Flint Hills of Kansas after midnight. Around 4AM one of the storms started to show low level rotation as it moved into southern Greenwood County and shortly after produced an EF-1 tornado southeast and east of Eureka.

A few hours later, a line storms along the cold front moved into the Flint Hills with a brief but strong tornado occurring south of Virgil. This tornado was rated an EF-2 with damage including steel purlins being bent along with a large outbuilding ripped from its foundation. Luckily there were no injuries of fatalities with these tornadoes.

Began near Quincy (37.9200, -96.0100).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1165698. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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