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EF0 tornado in Hamilton County, Nebraska

Tornado May 1, 2018 · Hamilton County, Nebraska

EF0
Rating
0.0 mi
Path length
50 yd
Path width
$50K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 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

A nearly stationary landspout tornado occurred northwest of Aurora. This EF-0 tornado had a maximum wind speed estimated to be 70 MPH, which was based upon damage to a center irrigation pivot which was overturned. Several people witnessed this tornado.

The wider storm

Severe storms produced numerous reports of hail and 3 brief, weak tornadoes on this Tuesday afternoon and evening. Between 230 and 330 PM CST, scattered fairly small supercell thunderstorms developed along a line from Red Cloud to Grand Island to Columbus. They were not mini-supercells, though, as cloud tops were near 40,000 ft. The storms generally remained along that line except for one storm that moved east into Clay County and another small multicell cluster that moved east along the Nebraska-Kansas border. Nearly 30 occurrences of severe hail were reported with most of between the sizes of quarters and golf balls. The largest hail reported was 2 inches in diameter in the town of Roseland. Three brief EF-0 tornadoes also occurred. The storms from Grand Island to Columbus formed along a slow-moving cold front. One tornado was associated with a supercell located on or very close to the front just west of Aurora. Another tornado formed near Doniphan as a north-northeastward-moving storm crossed the front. The third tornado occurred with the storm that moved east along the Nebraska-Kansas border. This storm evolved from a small bow echo and exhibited a spiral shape as it produced a brief tornado near Chester. The storms dissipated or moved out of south central Nebraska by 6 PM CST.

A low pressure system was near Lake Superior with a slow-moving cold front extending southwest across Nebraska to the Oklahoma Panhandle. In the upper-levels, southwest flow covered most of the U.S., with a trough over the West and a ridge over the Northeast. Just prior to thunderstorm development, temperatures were in the lower 80s with dewpoints in the upper 50s to near 60. With mid-level lapse rates near 8 C/km, MLCAPE was 2000-2500 J/kg. Deep layer shear was 40-50 kts, which was more than sufficient for supercell convective mode.

Began near Murphy (40.9156, -98.1455).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF0 Hall CountyEF0 Thayer County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 753012. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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