EF2 tornado, Quinter to Tasco, Kansas, May 23, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 23, 2008

Touchdown

4:35 PM CDT (21:35 UTC)

Lifted

5:13 PM CDT (22:13 UTC)

On the ground

38 minutes

Path length

14.0 miles (22.5 km)

Path width

1,760 yards (1609 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.8 million

Counties

Gove and Sheridan counties

Touchdown point

39.090, -100.256

Lift-off point

39.287, -100.256

Record number

0805231535-01

Intense supercell thunderstorms moved north across the region during the afternoon and evening hours producing 10 tornadoes, including an F4 tornado just SW of Quinter. Extremely heavy rainfall also resulted in flooding in many areas. Many of these thunderstorms occurred in the same areas as the storms the previous day.

KAKE-TV relayed this tornado report. This tornado damaged utility poles and trees as it moved northeast from Gove into southern Sheridan county.

This tornado moved into Sheridan county from Gove county north of Quinter. Damage occurred to utility poles and trees. No homes or outbuildings suffered damage.

This tornado moved into southern Sheridan county from Gove county. It initially moved NNE, then straight north on Road 120E then turned back to the NNW before dissipating near Road 50S and 100E in Sheridan county. Approximately five miles of utility poles were broken or heavily damaged from a combination of tornado and rear flank downdraft winds. In addition, several farmsteads suffered damage to the home and outbuildings. A mobile home was blown off its supports and into a nearby home which was destroyed as a result.

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

28 minutes of warning. NWS GLD issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:07 UTC, 28 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:15 UTC and running to 01:50 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 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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.

Hill_city (HLC), 42 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:36 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

78 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 79 of them

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.