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Tornado in Lincoln County, South Dakota

Tornado August 28, 2021 · Lincoln County, South Dakota

–
Not rated
3.6 mi
Whole path
20 yd
Path width
$75K
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 20 yards (0.01 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

Not rated. NOAA lists no rating for this tornado. Ratings come from surveying damage, and the National Weather Service now records “EFU” (unknown) when a tornado hit nothing a survey team could rate.

What the National Weather Service wrote

Based on Sentinel satellite imagery and confirmed with ground survey, a brief tornado spun up around 2 miles east of Lennox, just west of the Mount Olivet Cemetery. The tornado tracked east-northeast for less than one mile across open fields and wetlands, and dissipated 3 miles east-northeast of Lennox near the intersection of 278th Street and 468th Avenue. The average path width was 20 yards.

The wider storm

An unstable warm sector with MUCAPE up to 2000-2500 J/kg developed during the afternoon between an advancing cold front across southeast South Dakota and a gangly warm front extending into southwest Minnesota. An approaching weak impulse spurred rapid development of multiple rounds of storms near the warm front, initially discrete, with upscale growth into short bowing segments. Secondary development occurred during the evening along the cold front, which evolved into a slow-moving linear system with hail, wind, and heavy rainfall with shear vectors increasingly parallel to the boundary.

Began near Lennox (43.3520, -96.8620).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 983193. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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