EF1 tornado, Petersburg to Porterville, Kansas, July 29, 2013

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

July 29, 2013

Touchdown

5:05 PM CDT (22:05 UTC)

Lifted

5:06 PM CDT (22:06 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Bourbon County

Touchdown point

37.791, -95.065

Lift-off point

37.792, -95.072

Record number

1307291605-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SGF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• Couple of hardwood trees were uprooted. Numerous large tree branches were blown down. One mobile home was blown four feet off its foundation. A pontoon boat was blown into a tree.
• Large tree branches were broken.
• A couple large trees were uprooted.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A large complex of strong to isolated severe thunderstorms produced an isolated brief tornado along with widespread flooding.

A brief EF-1 tornado touched down near the southern end of the Bourbon County Lake and traveled northwestward towards the corner of 20th Street and Indian Road. One mobile home which was properly tied down was shifted approximately four feet off its foundation and had severe damage to the exterior. There was a couple outbuildings or small barns that were totally destroyed. There was a couple of trees that were uprooted. Numerous large tree branches were either blown down or snapped. Another house had numerous shingles torn off the roof. A pontoon boat was lifted and thrown 10 yards. The estimated winds were at 90 mph and path width of 100 yards.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 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 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 Pleasant Hill radar (KEAX), 133 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:06 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 2013 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.