Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2012
EF0 tornado, Beeler, Kansas, June 14, 2012
This EF0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Ness County on June 14, 2012, touching down at 7:18 PM CDT and reaching 75 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 14, 2012
- Touchdown
- 7:18 PM CDT (00:18 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:20 PM CDT (00:20 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.5 miles (0.8 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Ness County
- Touchdown point
- 38.370, -100.230
- Lift-off point
- 38.369, -100.221
- Record number
- 1206141818-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Strong daytime heating and a sagging cold front combined to produce severe thunderstorms during the late afternoon and evening.
This tornado became rain wrapped very quickly.
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.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:49 UTC and running to 02:33 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:49 UTC | 02:33 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | DDC |
| 23:31 UTC | 00:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | DDC |
| 00:04 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | DDC |
| 00:30 UTC | 01:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | DDC |
| 00:43 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | DDC |
| 01:12 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | DDC |
| 01:23 UTC | 13:15 UTC | Flood 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 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 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), 00:00Z
0.3 hours before the tornado, 72 km from the path. June 15, 2012.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2789 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -40 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3905 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2283 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 62 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 161 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 7.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 8.6 K/km
Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z
11.7 hours after it, 72 km from the path. June 15, 2012.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 8 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -536 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 121 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1470 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -41 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 32 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
The surface observations
Garden_city (GCK), 66 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:54 UTC | 96 | 57 | 170° 16 kt | 27 | 1006.4 | |
| 23:54 UTC | 92 | 59 | 170° 20 kt | 24 | 1004.4 | |
| 00:12 UTC | 84.2 | 44.6 | 260° 37 kt | 46 | 1006.8 | HZ |
| 00:20 UTC | 75.2 | 53.6 | 270° 37 kt | 53 | 1006.4 | -RA |
| 00:27 UTC | 68 | 57.2 | 280° 29 kt | 47 | 1007.5 | -RA |
| 00:54 UTC | 70 | 58 | 260° 18 kt | 26 | 1009.5 | -RA |
| 01:39 UTC | 75.2 | 51.8 | 1009.8 | TS | ||
| 01:54 UTC | 1009.5 | VCTS | ||||
| 02:09 UTC | 78.8 | 48.2 | 250° 17 kt | 24 | 1008.5 | RA |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:19 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:35 UTC | HAIL 1 | 11 Nw Ness City | Ness, KS | |
| 23:45 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | Ness City | Ness, KS | THE REPORT WAS FROM NEAR NESS CITY. |
| 00:10 UTC | HAIL 1 | 5 Sw Dighton | Lane, KS | |
| 00:18 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Ssw Beeler | Ness, KS | |
| 00:27 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 5 S Beeler | Ness, KS | THE CALLER REPORED A LARGE, CONE SHAPED, ROTATING FUNNEL CLOUD HE SAW SHORTLY. THEN IT BECAME RAIN WRAPPED AND IT OBSCURED HIS VIEW. |
| 00:38 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Ene Alexander | Rush, KS | |
| 01:00 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 1 Wnw Bazine | Ness, KS | |
| 01:07 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 5 W Ness City | Ness, KS | 2 FUNNEL CLOUDS WERE REPORTED AS LOWERING TOWARD THE GROUND, BUT TOUCHDOWN COULD NOT BE OBSERVED. THIS LSR WAS MISTAKENLY SENT OUT AS A FLASH FLOOD EVENT. |
| 01:07 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 5 W Ness City | Ness, KS | 2 FUNNEL CLOUDS WERE REPORTED AS LOWERING TOWARD THE GROUND, BUT TOUCHDOWN COULD NOT BE OBSERVED. |
| 01:20 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 9 S Jetmore | Hodgeman, KS | VISIBILITY WAS REDUCED TO NEAR ZERO IN BLOWING DUST. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2012 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 14, 2012
2 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.