EF1 tornado, Prairie View, Kansas, May 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

May 29, 2013

Touchdown

8:10 PM CDT (01:10 UTC)

Lifted

8:12 PM CDT (01:12 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$80,000

County

Phillips County

Touchdown point

39.818, -99.578

Lift-off point

39.827, -99.569

Record number

1305291910-01

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

• picture looking southwest. Probable end point area.
• Probable starting area based upon witness accounts.

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

Severe weather was widespread across the Central Plains on this Wednesday, and North Central Kansas was not spared. An EF-1 tornado occurred, as well as straight-line wind damage. During the afternoon, an extensive squall line formed from north-central Nebraska to western Kansas. Around 8 pm CDT, as the squall line approached North Central Kansas, the part of the line over Norton and Graham counties surged outward, resulting in an embedded bow echo. Spotters estimated winds of 60 to 70 mph, with the main swath of damage occurring over Phillips and Smith Counties. The spotter-estimated winds were confirmed by a measurement of 58 MPH at the Smith Center municipal airport. Trees and power poles were blown down in parts of Phillips county. Some of that damage was associated with a brief, non-supercell tornado south of Prairie View. Winds were estimated as high as 90 MPH. The line weakened once it past Smith Center, but it still produced winds as high as 50 mph in some locations.||These numerous thunderstorms, and the associated severe weather, were a result of lee cyclogenesis over Colorado. A negatively tilted upper-level trough extended from Colorado southeastward to Texas, with the leading edge of a 100 knot upper-level jet streak just to the west. The atmosphere was extremely unstable. Temperatures nearing 80 degrees, with dewpoints approaching 70 degrees, resulted in MLCAPE of 3000-3500 J/kg. Deep layer shear was around 40 knots.

This tornado touched down approximately 1 mile south of Prairie View and was on the ground for a couple minutes before lifting just outside the southeast edge of town. This EF1 rated tornado had a maximum wind speed estimated to be 90 mph and a maximum width of 40 yards. Damage from this tornado was primarily confined to one farmstead, with 3 outbuildings being damaged or destroyed, tree damage with limbs up of 6 to 8 inches in diameter being broken and the home sustained window damage.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:06 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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 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 Grand Island radar (KUEX), 111 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:10 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

25 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.