EF3 Tornado — Seward, Nebraska

2014-05-11 · near Cordova, Seward, Nebraska

Event narrative

This tornado crossed into Seward county from York county and was the most intense tornado during this outbreak with a track of around 14 miles in Seward county. The tornado moved just north of the city of Cordova crossing State Highway 76A. Here the tornado impacted several rural residents. High end EF2 damage was done to one brick home where the roof was completely removed and some external walls were knocked down. The tornado continued northeast crossing Yankee Hill Rd less than a mile from State Highway 76A, and this is where the most significant damage occurred. Here a well built brick home had the roof completely removed, exterior walls knocked down, and a couple of interior walls downed as well. The tornado continued northeast while widening, but generally decreasing in intensity as it crossed Denton and Old Cheney Roads. The tornado reached its maximum width to the southwest of Beaver Crossing before moving directly into town. Widespread damage was observed in Beaver Crossing with nearly every structure in town sustaining some damage. In the city scattered EF2 damage was noted with several structures having thier roofs removed. Otherwise most of the damage was tree, power line and outbuildings being destroyed. The tornado exited Beaver Crossing and moved northeast while decreasing in width and intensity eventually dissipating less than 1 mile south of Interstate 80.

Wider weather episode

One long-tracked supercell thunderstorm, and several other shorter-lived storms spawned tornadoes across eastern Nebraska during the late afternoon and evening hours of May 11th. The storms developed near the intersection of a warm front and dry-line/cold front in south central Nebraska then tracked northeast along the warm front toward the Lincoln and Omaha areas. Conditions in the area were very unstable with temperatures in the 80s to around 90 south of the warm front with dew point temperatures in the 60s. In total 12 tornadoes were recorded in the Omaha/Valley warning area with several others in the Hastings forecast area. The storms also produced very heavy rainfall which caused some flooding, mostly north through west and southwest of Lincoln.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.7259, -97.3683)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 506833. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.