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EF4 tornado in Pawnee County, Kansas

Tornado May 18, 2013 · Pawnee County, Kansas

EF4
Rating
7.0 mi
Path length
1,100 yd
Path width
$140K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 1,100 yards (0.62 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF4 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF4 is devastating damage: well-built houses levelled, consistent with estimated gusts of 166–200 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

This tornado was well documented by storm chasers, spotters and a research team with portable doppler radar. The tornado did turn north towards the end of it's life cycle. Low end EF4 damage was done to a home along US156. The roof and walls were blown away of this well constructed house. Several large tanks were carried a long distance. There were 2 people inside but they escaped injury by taking shelter. Video shows that sub-vortices within the tornado may have actually had a little stronger wind. The Doppler on wheels that was observing the tornado had near surface measured wind speeds of 165 to 185 MPH.

The wider storm

High instability was in place as an upper level wind maxima moved out of the base of a deep upper trough in the west.

Began near Burdett Rucker Arpt (38.1429, -99.4706).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF1 Ellis CountyEF1 Pawnee CountyEF0 Ellis CountyEF0 Pawnee CountyEF0 Ness CountyEF0 Trego County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 457695. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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