EF0 tornado, Timken to Rush Center, Kansas, May 24, 2011

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

May 24, 2011

Touchdown

5:35 PM CDT (22:35 UTC)

Lifted

5:49 PM CDT (22:49 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

6.2 miles (9.9 km)

Path width

1,200 yards (1097 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Rush County

Touchdown point

38.474, -99.150

Lift-off point

38.561, -99.128

Record number

1105241635-01

A vigorous upper level disturbance, jet streak dynamics and a strong dry line combined to produce numerous rotating thunderstorms. Large hail, flooding rains, and tornadoes were observed.

This was a small tornado that was developing along with a wall cloud.

This large tornado developed very near Timken and appeared to be a multi-vortex tornado. Storm chasers said it moved slowly at first as it grew very large and then picked up speed as it dissipated north of the highway. Due to the vast amount of flooding in the area, there may have been damage greater that high-end EF1, or at least capable based on eye witness reports.

Another storm south of the Timken tornado produced this tornado but it did not strike anything to damage.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:27 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:27 UTC and running to 00:43 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 20:44 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.

Great_bend (GBD), 31 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 111 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:35 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 2011 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

47 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.