EF4 Tornado — Douglas, Nebraska

2024-04-26 · near Waterloo, Douglas, Nebraska

Event narrative

This tornado developed about one quarter mile west of the West Q Road and 255th Street intersection in Western Douglas county where trees were knocked down and a farmstead sustained outbuilding damage. The tornado continued northeast crossing agricultural fields and flipping numerous center pivots, eventually crossing 252nd Street. The tornado caused EF-2 damage as it approached Highway 92, damaging numerous homes and striking an acreage northwest of the Highway 92 (West Center street) and Highway 275 intersection. Several center pivots were overturned as the tornado continued northeast crossing east of Highway 275, causing EF-2 damage to several acreages, homes, and outbuildings along Highway 275/240th Street. Continuing northeast, the tornado crossed 234th Street near Harney Street where it damaged a horse farm and an acreage as well as a home along Dodge Street/Highway 6 before crossing Dodge Street causing roof and outbuilding damage at the Junkstock Farm. The tornado crossed the Elkhorn River, damaging trees and flipping center pivots in an acreage along Blondo Street just south of the railroad tracks. The tornado continued into the western part of Elkhorn approximately one-half mile south-southwest of the intersection of West Maple Road and 216th Street. One home sustained high-end EF-2 damage losing large sections of its roofs. Another home just to the north had total destruction of the structure, resulting in EF-4 damage. The tornado moved across Prospect Hills Cemetery, damaging headstones, and moved across West Maple Avenue severely damaging a landscape business before entering the Ramblewood subdivision. Numerous homes in the subdivision received EF-3 damage with only small interior rooms standing. EF-3 damage persisted as the tornado continued north-northeastward damaging homes between 212th Street and Kestrel Parkway, again leaving only interior rooms standing. Two homes at the intersection of North 212th Street and Larimor Avenue were completely destroyed, resulting in a second instance of EF-4 damage. The tornado then crossed Fort Street about one-third of a mile east of 216th Street, causing the collapse of new development homes. This damage was also consistent with that of an EF-3 tornado. The tornado then veered to the northeast across mainly rural areas of northwestern Douglas County, between Fort Street and Military Road. By the time the tornado crossed Highway 31, it reached its peak width of 1 mile wide. EF-1 damage was noted in this area with several power poles and trees snapped. The tornado narrowed to about one-half mile wide and moved into residential development just northwest of the intersection of 180th Street and Military Road, where EF-1 damage was observed due to loss of roofs. The tornado then moved into Bennington's Newport Landing neighborhood, causing high-end EF-2 damage by removing large sections of several home's roofs and collapsing some exterior walls. The tornado then moved across Bennington Lake, crossing just west of the intersection of Highway 36 and 168th Street, snapping the tops off of numerous trees. It then moved across agricultural land, damaging farm outbuildings southeast of the intersection of 168th Street and Dutch Hall Road, before crossing into Washington County. All walls of this home were collapsed. However, the walls were not attached to the foundation in a way that would discriminate between EF-3 and EF-4 damage. Thus, high-end EF-3 damage was determined. Peak estimated winds for this segment of the tornado's track were at 170 miles per hour. The maximum width of the tornado in this segment was 1450 yards, with an average width of approximately 900 yards.

Wider weather episode

On the morning of April 26th, a potent negatively-tilted shortwave trough ejected out into the central Plains. Upper air analysis shows a jet streak on the downstream side of this trough with substantial divergence aloft over Nebraska. At the surface, morning cloud cover and drizzle across much of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa quickly gave way to partly cloud skies as a warm front moved north through the area, just after noon. At the same time, thunderstorms initiated along a pacific front/dryline in south-central Nebraska. One supercell produced several tornadoes from south-central Nebraska into Boone County, resulting in an EF-2 tornado just west of Cedar Rapids. A second round of supercells initiated in Jefferson and Saline counties. These long-track supercells produced the worst tornado outbreak the Omaha WFO has seen in 10 years. 5 EF-3 tornadoes were surveyed, with several of these tornadoes just shy of an EF-4 rating. One of these EF-3 tornadoes impacted the northeast side of Lincoln, Nebraska where 70 people were reported trapped in a manufacturing plant that collapsed as the tornado passed. Another long-track EF-3 tornado hit portions of Elkhorn, Bennington and Blair, Nebraska. Eppley Airfield was hit by the third EF-3 tornado of the day, doing damage to aircraft hangars on the southeast side of the airport before hitting homes in far western Pottawattamie County. The last two EF-3 tornadoes of the day both impacted portions of Pottawattamie County. While one remained primarily in rural areas in the central part of the county, the final EF-3 of the day hit the town of Minden, Iowa head-on, resulting in 1 fatality and 3 injuries. This was the only fatality of the entire event. This tornado continued into Shelby County, narrowly missing the towns of Tenant and Harlan. A total of 24 tornadoes were confirmed across both Nebraska and Iowa portions of the Omaha CWA. The strongest tornado was the EF-3 that impacted Elkhorn and Blair, with peak estimated wind speeds at 165 miles per hour.

Along the warm front the day prior, scattered thunderstorms developed along the Kansas-Nebraska border during the evening hours. Most of these storms were sub-severe, however, one thunderstorm produced severe hail in and north of Odell, Nebraska for around ten minutes just before 9 pm CDT.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.2000, -96.3300)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1167568. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.