EF0 tornado, Manchester, Kansas, April 14, 2012

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

April 14, 2012

Touchdown

7:31 PM CDT (00:31 UTC)

Lifted

7:36 PM CDT (00:36 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.3 miles (5.3 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Dickinson County

Touchdown point

39.130, -97.200

Lift-off point

39.120, -97.260

Record number

1204141831-01

A volatile environment developed across Kansas that featured extremely strong wind shear and sufficient buoyancy (called convective energy) to allow supercell thunderstorms to develop ahead of a dry line across central Kansas. The supercells produced strong to violent tornadoes across central Kansas and tracked into parts of the NWS Topeka county warning area during the evening. A handful of tornadoes were reported along with some large hail reports with the most numerous reports of large hail occurring after midnight.

This is a continuation of the tornado track through Ottawa County. Numerous reports of a well formed stove-pipe tornado were received as the storm crossed the Saline/Ottawa County line. The storm was also watched on live TV at the office via storm chaser cameras. The tornado was very well formed and was likely very strong; however, it did not impact many structures so the subsequent rating was EF-1. The extent of the damage was to a gas transfer station along K-18 near Solomon Road in rural Ottawa County. Near the station some power poles were snapped and laying across the roadway. Aside from the gas transfer station a few farmsteads were impacted, with the main damage being some damaged outbuildings. The tornado crossed the Ottawa/Dickinson County line near Barn Road and 3200 Road, and eventually dissipated in an open field in near Manchester.

The parent storm of the tornado that moved through Ottawa and Dickinson Counties formed another brief and weak tornado between Manchester and Industry. The only evidence of this tornado comes in the form of spotter and chaser reports, as survey teams did not locate any damage. The tornado dissipated over an open field near Industry.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS TOP issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:24 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:41 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:25 UTC and running to 06:37 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:43 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.

The Topeka radar (KTWX), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:29 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 2012 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

83 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 84 of them

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.