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EF0 tornado in Kiowa County, Kansas

Tornado December 25, 2016 · Kiowa County, Kansas

EF0

Rating

6.3 mi

Path length

30 yd

Path width

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 30 yards (0.02 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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 QLCS damaged a few trees and destroyed a small shed and carried the debris around 100 yards.

The wider storm

A very anomalous weather set-up was in place on Christmas Day across the area. Early morning dew points had risen to around 60 degrees F which is extremely usual and perhaps unprecedented for southwest Kansas for December 25. A squall line moved across the entire area and for a while produced QLCS brief tornadoes of which a few caused damage. High wind behind the Pacific front and dryline was observed during the afternoon.

Began near Greensburg (37.5116, -99.3277).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF0 Seward County EF0 Ford County EF0 Ford County EF0 Comanche County EF0 Rush County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 672711. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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