EF4 Tornado — Washington, Nebraska

2024-04-26 · near Washington, Washington, Nebraska

Event narrative

This segment of the tornado is a continuation of the EF-4 tornado that tracked through western Douglas County. After crossing Dutch Hall road into southern Washington County, the tornado damaged homes and farm outbuildings between County Road 29 and County Road 31 from Dutch Hall Road to County Road 36. The width of the tornado at this time ranged from one-third to one-half mile wide. The most significant damage was sustained to a home, machine shop and horse barn, one-third of a mile southeast of the intersection of County Road 40 and County Road 29. Trees were snapped and debarked, the house was moved from its foundation, flat-bed and horse-trailers rolled or lofted, and the machine shop and horse barns destroyed. The storm damage survey following this tornado determined high-end EF-3 damage occurred here. At least one horse was killed, and several others were injured. After this, the tornado crossed the intersection of County Road 36 and County Road 31, producing EF-0 to EF-1 damage in the form of partial roof and siding loss to farm buildings and manufactured homes, plus the snapping of large tree limbs. As it approached State Highway 133, several homes and farm outbuildings sustained EF-2 damage due to the loss of roofs or exterior walls. Crossing Highway 133, the tornado was just less than one-half mile wide, and moved into residential areas generally between County Road 32 and US Highway 75. The most significant damage of the whole tornado track occurred near the intersections of County Road P30 and County Road 33 with the destruction of multiple homes. Several houses were rated with high-end EF-3 damage, and one house was rated as receiving EF-4 damage. Peak winds in this area were estimated to be 170 miles per hour. The tornado then crossed US Highway 75 about 2 miles southeast of Blair moving across the very southern portion of the Cargill plant. The tornado weakened and narrowed, but snapped power poles and derailed several empty rail container cars from the tracks, resulting in EF-1 damage. The peak width of the tornado during this segment of its track was 1900 yards wide, with an average width of around 1000 yards. The tornado continued into southwestern Harrison county in Iowa where it dissipated shortly after crossing US Highway 30.

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 → (41.3930, -96.1710)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1167569. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.