Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2009
EF1 tornado, Tice, Kansas, June 14, 2009
This EF1 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Haskell County on June 14, 2009, touching down at 5:50 PM CDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $2,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF1
- Date
- June 14, 2009
- Touchdown
- 5:50 PM CDT (22:50 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:52 PM CDT (22:52 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (1.0 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $2,000
- County
- Haskell County
- Touchdown point
- 37.517, -100.735
- Lift-off point
- 37.515, -100.724
- Record number
- 0906141650-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Another disturbance moving across an unstable atmosphere generated severe thunderstorms once again.
This tornado moved rapidly east and then northeast. It damaged the Sublette feeders (grain elevator and equipment) and then overturned 3 pivot sprinklers, damaged trees and other irrigation pipe. The vortex was evident in the crop debris at two locations.
This tornado crossed highway 56 near the Tice elevator. A metal shed was damaged and several power poles were broken. Winds were estimated at 90 mph.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
25 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:25 UTC, 25 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:21 UTC and running to 02:26 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06:05 UTC | 09:10 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | DDC |
| 22:15 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | DDC |
| 22:21 UTC | 02:26 UTC | Tornado Watch | DDC |
| 22:25 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | DDC |
| 22:46 UTC | 23:16 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | DDC |
| 22:50 UTC | 23:04 UTC | Tornado Warning | DDC |
| 23:20 UTC | 02:47 UTC | Flood Advisory | DDC |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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 air that afternoon
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.
Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z
10.8 hours before the tornado, 78 km from the path. June 14, 2009.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 418 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -93 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 760 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 228 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 375 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 5.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.2 K/km
Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z
1.2 hours after it, 78 km from the path. June 15, 2009.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 901 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -124 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1815 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1286 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 53 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 20 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 137 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 178 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.2
- Supercell composite
- 2.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.4 K/km
The surface observations
Garden_city (GCK), 46 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:54 UTC | 77 | 66 | 110° 9 kt | 1012.9 | ||
| 21:54 UTC | 75.2 | 66.2 | 90° 8 kt | 1012.2 | ||
| 22:18 UTC | 75.2 | 66.2 | 70° 4 kt | 1012.5 | TS | |
| 22:54 UTC | 73 | 67 | 0° 0 kt | 1013.2 | -TSRA | |
| 23:38 UTC | 71.6 | 69.8 | 100° 12 kt | 1011.9 | -TSRA BR | |
| 23:54 UTC | 71 | 69 | 120° 11 kt | 1011.5 | -RA |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:50 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:59 UTC | TSTM WND GST 72 | 6 Ssw Hickok | Grant, KS | |
| 21:59 UTC | TSTM WND GST 72 | 7 Ssw Hickok | Grant, KS | |
| 22:01 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Ulysses | Grant, KS | |
| 22:05 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Sse Hickok | Grant, KS | REAR FLANK DOWNDRAFT WINDS BLEW TWO POWER POLES DOWN. |
| 22:23 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Ne Ryus | Haskell, KS | |
| 22:25 UTC | TORNADO | 6 W Sublette | Haskell, KS | |
| 22:25 UTC | TORNADO | 8 N Satanta | Haskell, KS | A TORNADO WAS OBSERVED JUST SOUTH OF HIGHWAY 160 ALONG GG ROAD. |
| 22:26 UTC | TORNADO | 7 Ne Ryus | Haskell, KS | THE TORNADO DISSIPATED. |
| 22:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 7 Ne Sublette | Haskell, KS | ROOFS WERE BLOWN OFF HOUSES ALONG HIGHWAY 144. |
| 22:43 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 8 Nnw Sublette | Haskell, KS | |
| 22:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Wsw Copeland | Haskell, KS | CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE OCCURRED AT SUBLETTE FEEDERS. A LEG WAS BLOWN FROM A GRAIN ELEVATOR, AND OTHER EQUIPMENT WAS DAMAGED. |
| 22:52 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Tice | Haskell, KS | TWO POWER POLES WERE BLOWN DOWN. THEY WERE SNAPPED OFF AT THE BASE. |
| 22:55 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 N Copeland | Gray, KS | CENTER PIVOT IRRIGATION SYSTEMS TURNED OVER. TWO TRAILERS WERE BLOWN OVER. TREE LIMBS BLOWN DOWN ON HOUSE. |
| 23:05 UTC | NON-TSTM WND GST 80 | Copeland | Gray, KS | FOUR INCH DIAMETER TREE LIMBS WERE BLOWN DOWN. HAIL UP TO THE SIZE OF QUARTERS FELL. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2009 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 14, 2009
7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 14 | 10:25 AM CDT | EF1 | Lawrence, AL | 0.8 | 150 | |||
| June 14 | 1:27 PM MDT | EF0 | Platte, WY | 5.9 | 40 | |||
| June 14 | 2:53 PM MDT | EF0 | Hot Springs, WY | 0.7 | 30 | |||
| June 14 | 5:23 PM CDT | EF0 | Haskell, KS | 3.3 | 125 | |||
| June 14 | 6:45 PM EDT | EF1 | Morgan, KY | 1.5 | 75 | $35,000 | ||
| June 14 | 5:47 PM CDT | EF1 | Haskell, KS | 3.7 | 150 | $250,000 | ||
| June 14 | 8:03 PM CDT | EF1 | Comanche, KS | 3.7 | 100 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.