Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2010
EF0 tornado, Bushton, Kansas, June 12, 2010
This EF0 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Rice County on June 12, 2010, touching down at 6:56 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 12, 2010
- Touchdown
- 6:56 PM CDT (23:56 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:58 PM CDT (23:58 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.4 miles (0.7 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Rice County
- Touchdown point
- 38.490, -98.420
- Lift-off point
- 38.494, -98.414
- Record number
- 1006121756-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A stationary frontal boundary draped across Central Kansas helped lead to the development of showers and thunderstorms across the region late in the afternoon of June 12th, 2010. Abundant moisture along this frontal boundary led to the development of supercell thunderstorms with a few weak tornadoes, which mainly touched down in open fields. The thunderstorms evolved into a line of storms and eventually led to an extended period of heavy rainfall during the overnight hours of June 12th into the early morning hours on June 13th, with some widespread flooding in Central Kansas. The areas hit the hardest with flooding were just to the north and northeast of Hutchinson, Kansas, and to the northeast of Newton, Kansas near Peabody, Kansas.
Brief tornado touchdown in an open field with no damage.
The tornado touched down in a milo field and moved northeast knocking down a few power poles near 9th road and Avenue C.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
10 minutes of warning. NWS ICT issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:46 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:16 UTC and running to 02:50 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:16 UTC | 02:50 UTC | Tornado Watch | ICT |
| 23:12 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ICT |
| 23:22 UTC | 23:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | ICT |
| 23:46 UTC | 00:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | ICT |
| 00:00 UTC | 07:45 UTC | Flood Watch | ICT |
| 00:16 UTC | 01:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ICT |
| 00:19 UTC | 06:15 UTC | Flood Warning | ICT |
| 04:15 UTC | 16:15 UTC | Flood Warning | ICT |
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 20:00 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 radar
The Wichita radar (KICT), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:58 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:42 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 6 Nw Great Bend | Barton, KS | |
| 22:45 UTC | TSTM WND GST 52 | Great Bend Airport | Barton, KS | |
| 22:53 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Nw Great Bend | Barton, KS | POSSIBLE TOUCHDOWN ALONG HIGHWAY 96 AND NW 20TH ROAD. DEBRIS ALSO REPORTED. |
| 22:59 UTC | TSTM WND GST 61 | Great Bend | Barton, KS | REPORT WAS FROM KSN WEATHER LAB. |
| 23:06 UTC | TORNADO | 5 N Great Bend | Barton, KS | EMERGENCY MANAGERS RECEIVED SEVERAL REPORTS OF A TORNADO TOUCHING DOWN AND THEN LIFTING BACK UP. |
| 23:17 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 4 Sw Claflin | Barton, KS | |
| 23:24 UTC | TSTM WND GST 65 | 2 N Great Bend | Barton, KS | A STORM SPOTTER REPORTED THEIR HUMMER AND OTHER VEHICLES WERE BLOWN OFF THE ROAD AS THEY WERE HEADING NORTH ON 281. |
| 23:32 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Sw Claflin | Barton, KS | ANOTHER BREIF TOUCHDOWN WAS REPORTED 3 MILES SOUTH AND 2 MILES WEST OF CLAFLIN. NO DEBRIS WAS REPORTED. |
| 23:43 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 5 Ne Claflin | Ellsworth, KS | SPOTTER WAS ON HIGHWAY 156 LOOKING SOUTHWEST. |
| 23:43 UTC | FLOOD | Ssw Ellinwood | Barton, KS | A SPOTTER REPORTED WATER RUNNING ACROSS HIGHWAY 56, AS WELL AS SOME SIDE STREETS BECOMING IMPASSIBLE DUE TO VERY HEAVY RAINFALL. |
| 23:51 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 3 Ssw Bushton | Rice, KS | |
| 23:51 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | Sw Bushton | Rice, KS | |
| 23:56 UTC | TORNADO | 10 Nnw Chase | Rice, KS | TRAINED SPOTTER REPORTED A BRIEF TOUCHDOWN. |
| 00:03 UTC | FLOOD | Ene Ellinwood | Barton, KS | A TRAINED SPOTTER REPORTED LOW LYING STREETS UNDER WATER, MAKING THEM IMPASSIBLE. |
| 00:03 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Ese Bushton | Rice, KS | SKYWARN SPOTTER REPORTED A BRIEF TORNADO TOUCH DOWN IN A MILO FIELD, AT 8TH ROAD AND AVENUE D. ALSO REPORTED POWER POLES DOWN, 8TH ROAD AND AVENUE C. |
| 00:04 UTC | TSTM WND GST 65 | Bushton | Rice, KS | TRAINED SPOTTER REPORTED POWER POLES SNAPPED AT THE TOP AT 8TH ROAD BETWEEN AVE E AND D. |
| 00:10 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 7 Nw Great Bend | Barton, KS | BARTON COUNTY EOC REPORTED WATER OVER HWY K-96 AT MILE MARKER 172. |
| 00:15 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 1 N Holyrood | Ellsworth, KS | SPOTTER ALSO REPORTED SOME MINOR STREET FLOODING. |
| 00:19 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Bushton | Rice, KS | TRAINED SPOTTER REPORTED 12 INCH DIAMETER TREE LIMBS DOWN IN AND NEAR BUSHTON. |
| 00:31 UTC | TSTM WND GST 54 | Ellsworth | Ellsworth, KS | |
| 00:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 8 Wnw Ellsworth | Ellsworth, KS | EOC RECEIVED REPORT OF 5 POWER POLES DOWN NEAR OLD HWY 40 AT 7TH ROAD NEAR BLACK WOLF. |
| 00:40 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 0.62 | 1 S Ellsworth | Ellsworth, KS |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2010 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 12, 2010
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.