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EF0 tornado in Hitchcock County, Nebraska

Tornado May 18, 2025 · Hitchcock County, Nebraska

EF0

Rating

10.9 mi

Whole path

50 yd

Path width

$655K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Hitchcock County → Hitchcock County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 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 storm chaser relayed that a satellite tornado from the main tornado to the north crossed Highway 34 along with flipping a pivot.

The wider storm

Numerous severe storms moved into SW Nebraska from northeast Colorado and northwest Kansas and led to numerous reports of hail, wind and tornadoes. The strongest tornado was an EF 3 to the north of Stratton, Nebraska along with hail around 2 inches north of Stratton and in Benkelman as well. The EF 3 caused major damage to structures, electric poles, and farm machinery. The same thunderstorm also produced swaths of straight-line winds that also caused damage to electric poles, trees, and structures.

Began near Stratton (40.1363, -101.2615).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EFU Dundy County EFU Hitchcock County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1257176. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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