EF3 tornado, Phillips Vlg to New Cambria, Kansas, June 11, 2008

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

June 11, 2008

Touchdown

9:40 PM CDT (02:40 UTC)

Lifted

9:57 PM CDT (02:57 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

16.4 miles (26.5 km)

Path width

225 yards (206 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$2.6 million

County

Saline County

Touchdown point

38.751, -97.683

Lift-off point

38.854, -97.407

Record number

0806112040-01

Supercell thunderstorms erupted along a strong cold front across Central Kansas. The supercell storms produced destructive hail and damaging winds, along with tornadoes across Central, Kansas. A few strong tornadoes touched down just south of Salina, Kansas. The supercells would continue to track to the northeast and eventually produce the tornadoes that would hit Chapman, Kansas and Manhattan, Kansas.

Widespread damage was noted to several homes, businesses, and trees along the tornadoes path. One cabinet making business had a 10000 square foot section of roof removed, with a total of 20000 square feet of damage to the structure as a sprinkler main broke pouring water onto the factory floor. Several homes sustained damage due to garage doors collapsing in the wind and ultimately lifting the roofs off of the homes. One home sustained slightly more damage than the rest, as two exterior walls were also blown out.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS ICT issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:32 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:37 UTC and running to 02:51 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.

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.