EF1 tornado, Trego Center to Wakeeney, Kansas, May 22, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

May 22, 2008

Touchdown

8:57 PM CDT (01:57 UTC)

Lifted

9:00 PM CDT (02:00 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Trego County

Touchdown point

38.989, -99.906

Lift-off point

39.026, -99.878

Record number

0805221957-01

Jet streak dynamics associated with an anonymously strong upper level low in the rockies interacted with increasing low level moisture to produced widespread severe thunderstorms. The first tornadoes of the season occurred on this afternoon.

This tornado passed over wide open spaces.

A tornado developed southwest of the Wakeeney airport and subsequently moved across the south side of Wakeeney before curving north along 13th Avenue and dissipating about 0.25 miles north of the city limit and 0.25 miles west of U.S. 283 (13th Street). The first damage was destruction of a hangar at the airport. The hangar was open to the south, and the wind entered the structure, lifted it, and deposited it in pieces northeast of its original location. The tornado moved through the KOA Campground south of I70, rolling a fifth wheel trailer, destroying a small cabin that was held down only by gravity, blowing limbs up to six inches in diameter from trees, and removing shingles from the roof of the manager���s office. Portions of the flat roof covering on the high school were lifted and peeled off. Small storage buildings were destroyed and trees were uprooted along 13th Street. At the north end of Wakeeney, a large Quonset building that opened to the south was lifted and destroyed, and the roof was removed from a brick barn. Wind speeds were estimated to be 90-100 mph.

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

49 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:08 UTC, 49 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:54 UTC and running to 02:15 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:02 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 Dodge City radar (KDDC), 139 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:58 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

27 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.