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EF1 tornado in Pawnee County, Kansas

Tornado May 16, 2017 · Pawnee County, Kansas

EF1

Rating

26.6 mi

Whole path

300 yd

Path width

Injuries

$658K

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

The tornado did EF1 damage in Pawnee county but became stronger as it moved into Pawnee Rock in Barton County.

The wider storm

A strong shortwave trough over the southwestern states moved east northeastward toward the central and southern Plains as another low pressure system dropped into the Pacific Northwest. A dryline set up and high dewpoints were in the area by mid-afternoon, resulting in even stronger CAPE. This created severe hail and wind across the counties mentioned above, as well as tornadoes in Clark, Ford, and Pawnee counties.

Began near Ray (38.1987, -99.0186).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF1 Clark County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 705203. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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