Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2010
EF0 tornado, Charleston to Ingalls Muni Arpt, Kansas, May 19, 2010
From Charleston to Ingalls Muni Arpt, this EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Gray County on May 19, 2010, touching down at 5:48 PM CDT and reaching 30 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
- May 19, 2010
- Touchdown
- 5:48 PM CDT (22:48 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:51 PM CDT (22:51 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.4 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Gray County
- Touchdown point
- 37.822, -100.463
- Lift-off point
- 37.825, -100.461
- Record number
- 1005191648-02
What the Weather Service recorded
Very unstable air (almost tropical like) combined with a slow moving upper level disturbance to produce thunderstorms in the afternoon. One line of storms produced numerous funnel clouds and weak tornadoes and one hail report. Heavy rainfall was also observed.
A brief landspout made contact for about 2 minutes.
A brief landspout made contact for about 2 minutes.
A rope tornado with unspecified debris lasted 4 minutes.
This brief tornado did not strike anything.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:20 UTC | 00:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | 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 General Thunderstorms Risk, with a 0.02 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, 50 km from the path. May 19, 2010.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -86165 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 905 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 49 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 196 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 263 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z
1.2 hours after it, 50 km from the path. May 20, 2010.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 412 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -5 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 758 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 724 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 19 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 109 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 135 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.2
- Supercell composite
- 1.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.1 K/km
The surface observations
Garden_city (GCK), 26 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 | 63 | 58 | 120° 15 kt | 1006.1 | ||
| 21:01 UTC | 64.4 | 57.2 | 130° 13 kt | 17 | 1005.8 | |
| 21:54 UTC | 63 | 56 | 110° 13 kt | 1005.8 | ||
| 22:45 UTC | 60.8 | 57.2 | 130° 9 kt | 1005.4 | -RA BR | |
| 22:52 UTC | 60.8 | 57.2 | 80° 9 kt | 16 | 1005.4 | -RA BR |
| 22:54 UTC | 60 | 57 | 60° 11 kt | 16 | 1005.4 | -RA BR |
| 23:39 UTC | 55.4 | 51.8 | 330° 17 kt | 25 | 1006.1 | -RA BR |
| 23:54 UTC | 55 | 53 | 340° 13 kt | 1006.4 | -RA | |
| 00:08 UTC | 55.4 | 53.6 | 350° 19 kt | 26 | 1006.8 | RA BR |
| 00:22 UTC | 53.6 | 53.6 | 360° 18 kt | 29 | 1007.1 | +RA BR |
| 00:28 UTC | 53.6 | 53.6 | 360° 16 kt | 23 | 1007.1 | +RA BR |
| 00:40 UTC | 53.6 | 53.6 | 360° 14 kt | 1007.5 | RA BR | |
| 00:47 UTC | 55.4 | 53.6 | 350° 12 kt | 1007.5 | RA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 44 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:45 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:28 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.86 | 7 Se The Haggard Elev | Ford, KS | |
| 22:47 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 3 Sse Charleston | Gray, KS | |
| 22:50 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Sw Ingalls | Gray, KS | BRIEF LANDSPOUT TORNADO |
| 22:50 UTC | TORNADO | 2 N Charleston | Gray, KS | BRIEF LANDSPOUT TORNADO |
| 22:55 UTC | TORNADO | 5 W Pierceville | Finney, KS | THIS WAS A BRIEF ROPE TORNADO. |
| 22:56 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Ene Pierceville | Gray, KS | A ROPE TORNADO WITH DEBRIS WAS REPORTED AND ENDED AT 6 PM. |
| 22:58 UTC | TORNADO | 5 W Pierceville | Finney, KS | BRIEF ROPE TORNADO |
| 23:27 UTC | TORNADO | 6 N Charleston | Gray, KS | THIS WAS A BRIEF ROPE TORNADO. |
| 23:58 UTC | TORNADO | Cimarron | Gray, KS | A BRIEF AND SMALL TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN NEAR CIMARRON. |
| 00:05 UTC | TORNADO | 1 E Cimarron | Gray, KS | A 6X8 SHED DAMAGED BY BRIEF TORNADO |
| 00:33 UTC | TORNADO | 3 N Howell | Ford, KS | A TORNADO WAS REPORTED AT 102 AND GARNET ROAD. |
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 May 19, 2010
24 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 19 | 1:22 AM CDT | EF0 | Ellis, OK | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| May 19 | 1:56 AM CDT | EF1 | Hutchinson, TX | 0.4 | 100 | $28,000 | ||
| May 19 | 3:15 AM CDT | EF1 | Ellis, OK | 0.5 | 30 | |||
| May 19 | 3:32 AM CDT | EF0 | Ochiltree, TX | 1.1 | 50 | |||
| May 19 | 3:24 PM CDT | EF0 | Dewey, OK | 5.9 | 40 | |||
| May 19 | 4:41 PM CDT | EF0 | Kingfisher, OK | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 19 | 5:08 PM CDT | EF0 | Kingfisher, OK | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| May 19 | 5:24 PM CDT | EF0 | Logan, OK | 1.6 | 20 | |||
| May 19 | 5:33 PM CDT | EF1 | Kingfisher, OK | 14.0 | 75 | 1 | ||
| May 19 | 5:48 PM CDT | EF0 | Gray, KS | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| May 19 | 5:55 PM CDT | EF0 | Finney, KS | 0.4 | 50 | |||
| May 19 | 5:56 PM CDT | EF0 | Gray, KS | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| May 19 | 6:03 PM CDT | EF1 | Payne, OK | 10.6 | 200 | |||
| May 19 | 6:04 PM CDT | EF0 | Logan, OK | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| May 19 | 6:26 PM CDT | EF0 | Gray, KS | 0.3 | 30 | |||
| May 19 | 6:57 PM CDT | EF0 | Gray, KS | 0.2 | 30 | |||
| May 19 | 7:03 PM CDT | EF0 | Gray, KS | 0.4 | 50 | |||
| May 19 | 7:09 PM CDT | EF0 | Creek, OK | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 19 | 7:37 PM CDT | EF1 | Creek, OK | 5.0 | 600 | $15,000 | ||
| May 19 | 8:12 PM CDT | EF1 | Lincoln, OK | 1.4 | 25 | |||
| May 19 | 6:15 PM PDT | EF0 | Grant, WA | 0.2 | 100 | $2,000 | ||
| May 19 | 8:31 PM CDT | EF1 | Garvin, OK | 17.5 | 375 | |||
| May 19 | 8:46 PM CDT | EF1 | Okfuskee, OK | 8.0 | 500 | |||
| May 19 | 9:05 PM CDT | EF1 | Okfuskee, OK | 10.0 | 500 | $15,000 |
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.