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EF1 tornado in Marion County, Kansas

Tornado May 19, 2024 · Marion County, Kansas

EF1
Rating
1.1 mi
Path length
40 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 40 yards (0.02 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

Damage occurred to a few farm outbuildings along with trees. During the survey, swirls were observed in the brome and tree damage. There was debris collected in the trees too.

The wider storm

Around 2:30pm on Sunday May 19th, a high precipitation supercell developed near Hays along a warm front. This storm tracked east along I-70 producing a few brief tornadoes across Russell and northern Ellsworth county. As it progressed east, the wind and hail threat ramp-up as it moved into Saline County. The Salina Airport measured a 100 mph wind gust! There was also numerous reports of golf ball size hail across Salina.

A rapidly moving line of storms called a derecho then moved out of western Kansas and into Reno and Kingman counties shortly after 7 pm. This intense line of storms produced widespread 70 to 90 mph winds as it raced off to the northeast at 70 to 80 mph. Hardest hit were the communities of Hutchinson Haven, Burrton, Halstead and Newton where widespread tree damage and power outages were reported. Damage was also reported across southern Marion and northern Butler counties with tornado damage was documented near Burns. The destructive line of storms continued to produce damaging winds as it tracked toward Kansas City late Sunday night.

Began near Burns (38.1000, -96.9200).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

3 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1181786. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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