Tornadoes · United States · Colorado · 2020
EF0 tornado, Amherst, Colorado, July 8, 2020
This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Phillips County on July 8, 2020, touching down at 6:04 PM MDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
EF2111 to 135 mph
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
EF3136 to 165 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
EF5over 200 mph
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- July 8, 2020
- Touchdown
- 6:04 PM MDT (00:04 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:05 PM MDT (00:05 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.0 miles (0.0 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Phillips County
- Touchdown point
- 40.851, -102.132
- Lift-off point
- 40.851, -102.132
- Record number
- 2007081804-02
The damage survey
1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LBF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.
- Weak landspout tornado, no damage reported.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
Severe thunderstorms produced several brief landspout tornadoes in Sedgwick County. One unoccupied building sustained some damage while the rest touched down in open fields. In addition, thunderstorm wind gusts up to 70 mph were measured.
A tornado touched down briefly near the intersection of CO 16 and CO 55. No damage was observed.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:20 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | BOU |
| 00:00 UTC | 00:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | BOU |
| 00:17 UTC | 00:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | BOU |
| 00:42 UTC | 01:03 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | BOU |
Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.
The forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:57 UTC.
SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.
The air that afternoon
The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 00:00Z
0.1 hours before the tornado, 132 km from the path. July 9, 2020.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2624 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -22 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 4330 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2346 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 8 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 59 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 3.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 8.8 K/km
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 12:00Z
11.9 hours after it, 132 km from the path. July 9, 2020.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 207 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -563 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1906 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 58 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 47 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 2.0 K/km
The radar
The Goodland radar (KGLD), 169 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:04 UTC.
Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track
Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:50 UTC | TORNADO | 12 Ne Sixteen-Mile Corn | Sedgwick, CO | PH315 REPORTED A TOUCHDOWN APPROXIMATELY 20 NE OF HOLYOKE. |
| 00:00 UTC | TORNADO | 10 Nne Amherst | Sedgwick, CO | S131 REPORTED A TOUCHDOWN AT THE INTERSECTION OF CO 12 AND CO 53. |
| 00:05 UTC | TORNADO | 10 Se Sedgwick | Sedgwick, CO | SEDGWICK EM REPORTED A TOUCHDOWN NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF CO 18 AND HIGHWAY 385 BY NAWAS. |
| 00:05 UTC | TORNADO | 20 Se Sedgwick | Phillips, CO | SEDGWICK EM REPORTED A TOUCHDOWN NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF CO 16 AND CO 55. |
| 00:05 UTC | TORNADO | 20 Se Sedgwick | Phillips, CO | SEDGWICK EM REPORTED A TOUCHDOWN NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF CO 16 AND CO 57. |
| 00:11 UTC | TSTM WND GST 63 | 2 Se Julesburg | Sedgwick, CO | CO034 AT 1812 MDT. |
| 00:11 UTC | TORNADO | 7 Ne Sixteen-Mile Corne | Sedgwick, CO | MULTIPLE SPOTTER REPORTS OF UP TO THREE LANDSPOUT TORNADOES. |
| 00:20 UTC | TORNADO | 12 Se Julesburg | Sedgwick, CO | SEDGWICK EM REPORTED DAMAGE TO AN UNOCCUPIED BUILDING NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF CO 16 AND CO 55. |
| 00:29 UTC | TSTM WND GST 65 | 5 N Sixteen-Mile Corner | Sedgwick, CO |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2020 tornado in ColoradoEvery tornado in Colorado since 1950Warnings in force in Colorado nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 8, 2020
17 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 8 | 4:20 AM CDT | EF1 | Wilkin, MN | 12.4 | 200 | $550,000 | ||
| July 8 | 4:38 AM CDT | EF1 | Otter Tail, MN | 18.7 | 250 | $750,000 | ||
| July 8 | 5:10 AM CDT | EF2 | Otter Tail, MN | 2.0 | 300 | $200,000 | ||
| July 8 | 4:04 PM CDT | Unrated | Whiteside, IL | 0.3 | 10 | |||
| July 8 | 5:08 PM CDT | EF4 | Ashby–Dalton tornado, MN | 8.9 | 650 | 1 | 2 | $1.6 million |
| July 8 | 6:32 PM CDT | EF0 | Otter Tail, MN | 0.2 | 20 | |||
| July 8 | 5:49 PM MDT | EF0 | Sedgwick, CO | 0.0 | 50 | |||
| July 8 | 5:50 PM MDT | Unrated | Perkins, NE | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| July 8 | 5:55 PM MDT | Unrated | Perkins, NE | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| July 8 | 5:59 PM MDT | EF0 | Sedgwick, CO | 0.0 | 50 | |||
| July 8 | 6:01 PM MDT | Unrated | Perkins, NE | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| July 8 | 6:04 PM MDT | EF0 | Sedgwick, CO | 0.0 | 50 | |||
| July 8 | 6:10 PM MDT | EF0 | Sedgwick, CO | 0.0 | 50 | |||
| July 8 | 7:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Crow Wing, MN | 7.4 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| July 8 | 6:19 PM MDT | EF0 | Sedgwick, CO | 0.0 | 50 | |||
| July 8 | 7:55 PM CDT | Unrated | Thomas, NE | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| July 8 | 11:29 PM CDT | EF0 | Merrick, NE | 4.2 | 130 | $200,000 |
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.