EF1 Tornado — Gregory, South Dakota

2019-08-06 · near Burke, Gregory, South Dakota

Event narrative

A tornado developed and touched down in the heart of town near Washington and 7th streets, causing damage to several trees at the touchdown point. Shortly after, the tornado severely damaged several structures while tracking south, including leveling several buildings at the lumber yard, destroying the civic center, and causing significant damage to the school. The start of the school year was delayed by two weeks due to extent of the damage. Two people were (directly) injured by debris when a garage collapsed on them while moving vehicles to safety. Numerous power transmission poles and lines were removed by the tornado. Around 2 miles south southeast of Burke, the tornado struck a residence causing severe damage to the roof. Shortly thereafter, the tornado lifted before reaching the intersection of 295th Street and 345th Avenue after traveling a bit less than 4 miles. The path width reached a maximum of 75 yards within the city of Burke. Up to 3000 trees were damaged by the tornado in and near Burke. Property damage costs are rough estimates.

Wider weather episode

A very unstable atmosphere was in place across south central and southeast South Dakota with around 2000 J/kg MLCAPE. As a strong upper-level wave dropped from Montana into North Dakota, storms initiated after 1400CST along a pre-frontal surface trough across north central South Dakota. As storms moved into an environment with deep-layer effective shear of 40 to 50 knots, the southernmost cells produced very large hail as well as a brief tornado near Burke later in the evening. Two people were injured when the garage they were moving cars into at the time of the storm was destroyed.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (43.1833, -99.2911)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 850799. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.