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EF0 tornado in Ellsworth County, Kansas

Tornado May 19, 2024 · Ellsworth County, Kansas

EF0
Rating
0.2 mi
Path length
10 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 10 yards (0.01 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

A pivot system was flipped to the north on the south side of I-70 and to the south on the north side of I-70. A KDOT sign was also twisted.

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 Wilson (38.8480, -98.3941).

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 1181787. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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