EF1 tornado in Osage County, Kansas

Tornado May 21, 2011 · Osage County, Kansas

EF1

Rating

2.9 mi

Whole path

100 yd

Path width

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 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

A tornado developed just west of Quenemo touching down on the west side of town. It destroyed two structures both garages producing winds around 90 mph. The damage path continued east to around 2.5 miles southwest of Pomona in Franklin County where only minor tree damage was noted.

The wider storm

Supercell thunderstorms developed in advance of a cold front and dryline during the late afternoon of Saturday May 21st. Several of the supercell thunderstorms produced tornadoes including at least 2 brief touchdowns in Topeka. The strongest tornado was rated an EF3 and hit the town of Reading Kansas. In all there were 8 tornadoes across Northeast Kansas that evening. There was one fatality which occurred in the town of Reading where a man was killed when his mobile home was destroyed. There were 5 injuries that required treatment in Reading. The supercells also produced huge hailstones with some reported to be the size of softballs and numerous reports of baseball size hail in and around Topeka.

Began near Lomax (38.5768, -95.5333).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF3 Lyon County 1 dead EF1 Lyon County EF0 Shawnee County EF0 Shawnee County EF0 Jefferson County EF0 Douglas County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 295488. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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