EF1 tornado, Olcott to Langdon, 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 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 23, 2008

Touchdown

11:10 PM CDT (04:10 UTC)

Lifted

11:28 PM CDT (04:28 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

6.4 miles (10.3 km)

Path width

125 yards (114 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$65,000

County

Reno County

Touchdown point

37.763, -98.396

Lift-off point

37.827, -98.311

Record number

0805232210-01

Strong to severe thunderstorms affected portions of mainly central and south-central Kansas from the late evening hours of the 23rd into the early morning hours of the 24th. A strong and deep upper level disturbance and associated sharp dryline sparked supercell thunderstorms during the afternoon hours of the 23rd across western portions of Kansas and Oklahoma. These supercell thunderstorms moved east to northeast into portions of central and south-central Kansas during the evening hours, producing tornadoes, damaging straight-line winds and large hail. Ahead of these supercells, very strong south to southeast winds up to 60 mph developed for a time across central Kansas. By late evening, a squall line overtook the supercell thunderstorms over south-central Kansas, producing localized damaging straight-line winds into the early morning hours of the 24th.

The tornado touched down just inside the Reno county line and moved northeast, causing minor damage to a couple of homesteads, several trees, and a few power poles.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS ICT issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:51 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 01:48 UTC and running to 06:56 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 00:55 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.

Pratt (PTT), 36 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Wichita radar (KICT), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:10 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.