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EF3 tornado in Reno County, Kansas

Tornado July 13, 2015 · Reno County, Kansas

EF3

Rating

5.3 mi

Whole path

350 yd

Path width

$270K

Damage as recorded

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

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The path drawn at its surveyed width of 350 yards (0.20 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

A strong tornado moved southwest towards the town of Nickerson. One home was completely destroyed as it was blown off of its foundation. There were no anchor bolts present in the foundation (DI2 DOD9). The second more significant damage sight was where many trees were completely uprooted. Those that were not uprooted only had the main trunk left and it was completely debarked. The home took a glancing blow and only had minor damage. The family took shelter in an above ground shelter in their garage. The damage path for this portion of the tornado that moved out of Rice County was 350 yards wide.

The wider storm

A strong tornado moved southwest from Rice into Reno county causing significant damage to two different homesteads. One home was completely demolished while another took a glancing blow. Numerous trees were uprooted and those that were not had a significant amount of debarking. Several other storms moved across the area producing severe wind and hail.

Began near Nickerson (38.1732, -98.0129).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 580032. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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