Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2005

F0 tornado, Alton, Kansas, April 5, 2005

This F0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Osborne County on April 5, 2005, touching down at 4:03 PM CDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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 mphthis tornado

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

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    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
F0
Date
April 5, 2005
Touchdown
4:03 PM CDT (21:03 UTC)
Path length
1.0 miles (1.6 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Osborne County
Touchdown point
39.470, -98.970
Lift-off point
39.470, -98.980
Record number
697

What the Weather Service recorded

A large closed upper level low pressure system spawned tornado producing thunderstorms in north central Kansas. Two tornadoes were reported. One was near Alton in Osborne County and the other near Stockton in Rooks County. The tornadoes actually moved west northwest around the upper level low. Fortunately, no damage was reported. Heavy rain of 2 to 4 inches and the resultant runoff was responsible for flash flooding in Phillips County. The heaviest rain fell in the Stuttgart and Logan areas. At one point during the evening, there were severe roads throughout the county under water. The water receded by midnight.

A tornado in far northwest Osborne County drifted west across rural areas of the county west of Alton. No damage was reported.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:15 UTC21:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGID
21:58 UTC22:34 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGID

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:09 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.

Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z

9.1 hours before the tornado, 205 km from the path. April 5, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 2005-04-05Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 70 joules per kilogram, CIN -449, lifted condensation level 2555 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 12:00Z on 2005-04-05The 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 -44 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 27 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
70 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-449 J/kg
Surface CAPE
294 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2555 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-44 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
14 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z

2.9 hours after it, 205 km from the path. April 6, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 2005-04-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -85016, lifted condensation level 3245 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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 2005-04-06The 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 11 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 34 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-85016 J/kg
Surface CAPE
165 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
3245 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
3 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
11 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
7 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
9.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:03 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2005 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 5, 2005

14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 52:33 PM CDTF1Seward, KS7.5100
April 52:35 PM CDTF0Seward, KS0.530
April 53:00 PM CDTF0Haskell, KS0.330
April 53:20 PM CDTF0Haskell, KS0.220
April 53:20 PM CDTF0Gray, KS3.1100
April 53:27 PM CDTF0Gray, KS2.675
April 53:35 PM CDTF0Gray, KS0.320
April 54:21 PM CDTF0Rooks, KS1.020
April 56:35 PM CDTF0Latimer, OK1.575
April 56:42 PM CDTF0Latimer, OK2.075
April 57:08 PM CDTF1Sequoyah, OK2.5150$10,000
April 512:15 AM CDTF1Bienville Parish, LA3.03001$300,000
April 512:21 AM CDTF1Webster Parish, LA1.0300$250,000
April 512:30 AM CDTF1Bienville Parish, LA2.0300

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.