EF0 tornado, Carlton, Kansas, June 11, 2008

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. 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.

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

June 11, 2008

Touchdown

10:45 PM CDT (03:45 UTC)

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Dickinson County

Touchdown point

38.680, -97.280

Lift-off point

38.680, -97.280

Record number

0806112145-01

Two long lived supercells wreaked havoc across portions of north central and northeast Kansas on the night of June 11th. Three significant tornadoes touched down, caused millions of dollars in damage, killed two, and critically injured three citizens. The town of Chapman saw the most extensive damage. Approximately three-quarters of the town were damaged by the tornado that passed through. Numerous homes were demolished, as were both the middle school and high school. One death occurred in Chapman, as a result of flying debris striking a young woman while she protected her child. The most severe, but more localized damage occurred in the Miller Ranch neighborhood in Manhattan, where several homes were completely destroyed. The Soldier, Kansas tornado was responsible for the other death. A man was killed in his mobile home when it flipped several times and was found a few miles from it's original location. The unoccupied home a few hundred feet from the mobile home went virtually untouched. Thousands of citizens turned up over the next few weeks to help with the clean-up effort in both Chapman and Manhattan.

A brief tornado touched down in the town of Carlton. A few trees were reported to have been damaged.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

0 minutes of warning. NWS TOP issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:45 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:17 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:47 UTC and running to 06:45 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:54 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 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.

The Topeka radar (KTWX), 97 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:01 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

41 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.