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EF1 tornado in Butler County, Nebraska

Tornado June 4, 2008 · Butler County, Nebraska

EF1
Rating
3.8 mi
Path length
440 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 440 yards (0.25 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

This tornado touched down about 1 1/2 miles west of Ulysses, traveled east across town and then lifted around 2 1/2 miles east of town. The tornado heavily damaged 4 homes west of town and also caused tree and farm outbuilding damage and flipped dozens of center pivots. Power lines were also downed, causing 500 residents to lose power for 24 hours or more. Homes in Ulysses also sustained damage as did the Farmers Cooperative Elevator. This is the second tornado that spun up from a large supercell thunderstorm that moved across the area.

The wider storm

A stationary front over Kansas started lifting north on June 4th as an unseasonably strong upper level low pressure system was organizing over the central Rockies. This allowed very warm and unstable air to feed north into southern Nebraska and southwest Iowa during the afternoon on the 4th. Severe thunderstorms that developed by early afternoon on June 4 over central Nebraska quickly spread and developed into eastern Nebraska and southwest Iowa through evening. A few tornadic producing supercells developed over the area...and many of the storms contained very heavy rain which fell on soils that were already saturated from significant rains recorded over the prior week. This caused areas of flash flooding and subsequent river flooding.

Began near Ulysses (41.0708, -97.2441).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 97150. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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