Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 1991

F1 tornado, Lane County, Kansas, May 15, 1991

This F1 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Lane County on May 15, 1991, touching down at 8:09 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 to $50,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 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.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 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.

  7. 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
F1
Date
May 15, 1991
Touchdown
8:09 PM CDT (01:09 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$5,000 to $50,000
County
Lane County
Touchdown point
38.480, -100.470
Record number
555

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.

Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z

1.2 hours before the tornado, 93 km from the path. May 16, 1991.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 1991-05-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2181 joules per kilogram, CIN -62, lifted condensation level 973 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 1991-05-16The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 63 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 30 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2181 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-62 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3053 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
973 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
63 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
48 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.2
Supercell composite
1.7
0-3 km lapse rate
7.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z

10.8 hours after it, 93 km from the path. May 16, 1991.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 1991-05-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1548 joules per kilogram, CIN -120, lifted condensation level 947 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 1991-05-16The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 22 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
1548 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-120 J/kg
Surface CAPE
608 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
947 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
4 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
22 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
23 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Garden_city (GCK), 65 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1991 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 15, 1991

32 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 155:00 AM CDTF0Lafayette Parish, LA0.220$50,000 to $500,000
May 154:15 PM MDTF0Bernalillo, NM0.210
May 154:58 PM MDTF0Wallace, KS1.020
May 156:00 PM CDTF0Finney, KS2.030
May 156:00 PM CDTF0Finney, KS7.0150
May 155:05 PM MDTF1Laramie, WY0.180$50,000 to $500,000
May 156:05 PM CDTF0Finney, KS1.573
May 156:05 PM CDTF0Finney, KS1.573
May 156:05 PM CDTF0Finney, KS1.573
May 156:05 PM CDTF0Finney, KS1.573
May 156:05 PM CDTF0Finney, KS1.573
May 156:10 PM CDTF0Finney, KS1.573
May 156:20 PM CDTF0Finney, KS2.567
May 156:20 PM CDTF0Finney, KS2.550
May 156:20 PM CDTF0Finney, KS2.557
May 156:20 PM CDTF0Finney, KS2.567
May 156:27 PM CDTF0Wichita, KS1.010
May 156:27 PM CDTF0Wichita, KS1.010
May 156:27 PM CDTF0Wichita, KS1.010
May 156:27 PM CDTF0Wichita, KS1.010
May 156:30 PM CDTF0Finney, KS1.840
May 156:30 PM CDTF0Finney, KS1.840
May 156:30 PM CDTF0Scott, KS1.010
May 156:45 PM CDTF0Finney, KS3.557
May 156:45 PM CDTF0Finney, KS3.557
May 156:00 PM MDTF0Sherman, KS1.010
May 158:35 PM CDTF3Harper, OK11.59003$50,000 to $500,000
May 159:17 PM CDTF3Collingsworth, TX15.0450$50,000 to $500,000
May 159:30 PM CDTF0Beckham, OK0.350
May 1511:23 PM CDTF0Dewey, OK0.330
May 1511:30 PM CDTF0Beckham, OK0.550
May 1512:16 AM CDTF0Major, OK0.330

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.