TornadoLookup

Home / Kansas / Sedgwick

EF3 tornado in Sedgwick County, Kansas

Tornado April 14, 2012 · Sedgwick County, Kansas

EF3
Rating
13.2 mi
Path length
1,760 yd
Path width
38
Injuries
$500.0M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 1,760 yards (1.00 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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

Significant damage to homes, many of them had a number missing outer walls. Seven homes were missing two to four walls, one home was completely destroyed. The trees associated with house completely stripped to nothing, this was also the case at many other locations along the path.

A mobile home park to south had seventy five percent of the homes uninhabitable. Approximately twenty five percent were reduced to rubble.

Significant damage was also noted at McConnell AFB. Many of the hangars sustained damage. One hangar in particular that was owned by Spirit Aerosystems sustained a considerable amount of damage.

Several apartments and businesses also had damage like roofs being torn off and windows blown out.

The wider storm

A significant severe weather outbreak with several damaging long track tornadoes occurred. The strongest tornado moved through portions of central Kansas and produced EF-4 damage at one home stead. Two other tornadoes touched down producing EF-3 damage in south central Kansas.

Began near Haysville (37.5480, -97.3480).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF4 Rice CountyEF3 Sumner CountyEF3 Rice CountyEF1 Saline CountyEF1 McPherson CountyEF1 Harper CountyEF1 Marion CountyEF1 Sumner CountyEF1 Butler CountyEF1 Ellsworth CountyEF0 Barton CountyEF0 Kingman CountyEF0 Russell CountyEF0 Russell CountyEF0 Russell CountyEF0 Saline CountyEF0 Kingman CountyEF0 Reno CountyEF0 Saline CountyEF0 Butler CountyEF0 Butler CountyEF0 Butler CountyEF0 Kingman County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 366421. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.