EF0 tornado, Natoma, Kansas, August 28, 2014

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

August 28, 2014

Touchdown

5:30 PM CDT (22:30 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Osborne County

Touchdown point

39.213, -98.916

Lift-off point

39.213, -98.916

Record number

1408281630-01

A brief tornado touched down in Osborne County late this Thursday afternoon. Between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. CDT, several small thunderstorms formed from southwest to northeast across Osborne County. At 5:30 p.m., the southernmost storm produced a weak, brief tornado that touched down in open country, near the town of Natoma. The track was short and no damage occurred. Based on detailed radar analysis and a photograph obtained from Facebook, this appeared to be a non-supercell tornado. There was no pre-existing mesocyclone associated with the storm. Deep layer shear and winds in the low-levels were too weak to support mid-level mesocyclone formation. A regional radar mosaic showed a very lengthy fine line, which extended south-southwest to north-northeast across multiple Plains states, including central Kansas. This storm, along with its neighbors, initiated along this boundary. This further suggests the tornado was non-supercellular given the presence of localized shear and the possible presence of misocyclones along the boundary.||A wavy frontal boundary extended across the Ohio and mid-Mississippi River valleys to a weak low pressure center over Nebraska. The front then turned southward over the western third of Kansas. The fine line appeared to be a separate feature within the warm sector, not associated with the front. In upper levels, the main band of westerlies was zonal over southern Canada. Small substropical highs were just off the coast of California and over the Tennessee Valley. A trough was exiting the Rockies and extended from western South Dakota to western Texas. Prior to thunderstorm development, temperatures were in the lower to middle 80s, with dewpoints in the 60s. Mid-level lapse rates were poor, resulting in MLCAPE around 1500 J/kg. 0-6 km shear was weak, estimated around 25 knots.

This tornado briefly touched down in open country and caused no 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.

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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:36 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), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:27 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 2014 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.