Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2009
EF0 tornado, Shields to Pendennis, Kansas, June 20, 2009
From Shields to Pendennis, this EF0 tornado ran 4.2 miles across Lane County on June 20, 2009, touching down at 7:22 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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
- EF0
- Date
- June 20, 2009
- Touchdown
- 7:22 PM CDT (00:22 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:30 PM CDT (00:30 UTC)
- On the ground
- 8 minutes
- Path length
- 4.2 miles (6.7 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Lane County
- Touchdown point
- 38.632, -100.435
- Lift-off point
- 38.684, -100.395
- Record number
- 0906201822-01
What the Weather Service recorded
An upper level low with cold air aloft helped to produce low-topped showers and thunderstorms, some of which produced small tornadoes.
This was a tornado that made intermittent contact. The base of the shower was extremely low and it was underneath a cold core upper low.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The surface observations
Garden_city (GCK), 86 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 107 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:21 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.
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 20, 2009
14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 20 | 3:31 PM EDT | EF0 | Harford, MD | 1.0 | 100 | |||
| June 20 | 3:44 PM EDT | EF1 | Baltimore, MD | 5.0 | 150 | |||
| June 20 | 2:40 PM PDT | EF0 | Elko, NV | 0.2 | 50 | |||
| June 20 | 3:00 PM PDT | EF0 | Elko, NV | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| June 20 | 5:44 PM CDT | EF0 | Kiowa, KS | 1.0 | 50 | |||
| June 20 | 6:10 PM CDT | EF0 | Coffey, KS | 1.4 | 25 | |||
| June 20 | 6:17 PM CDT | EF1 | Pawnee, KS | 5.0 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| June 20 | 7:11 PM CDT | EF0 | Franklin, KS | 0.3 | 25 | |||
| June 20 | 7:44 PM CDT | EF0 | Barton, KS | 1.2 | 50 | 2 | $75,000 | |
| June 20 | 7:55 PM CDT | EF1 | McPherson, KS | 0.9 | 75 | $75,000 | ||
| June 20 | 8:05 PM CDT | EF0 | McPherson, KS | 4.5 | 100 | $200,000 | ||
| June 20 | 8:45 PM CDT | EF0 | Marion, KS | 0.9 | 75 | $100,000 | ||
| June 20 | 9:10 PM CDT | EF0 | Lincoln, KS | 1.2 | 55 | |||
| June 20 | 9:12 PM CDT | EF0 | Lincoln, KS | 0.4 | 50 |
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.