Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2015
EF0 tornado, Modoc to Shallow Water, Kansas, April 24, 2015
From Modoc to Shallow Water, this EF0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Scott County on April 24, 2015, touching down at 5:28 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
- April 24, 2015
- Touchdown
- 5:28 PM CDT (22:28 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:35 PM CDT (22:35 UTC)
- On the ground
- 7 minutes
- Path length
- 0.5 miles (0.8 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Scott County
- Touchdown point
- 38.310, -101.120
- Lift-off point
- 38.308, -101.111
- Record number
- 1504241628-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A slowly advancing warm front in an unstable atmosphere helped support deep convection. Several long lived supercell storms were capable of producing large hail and tornadoes.
This landspout tornado was one of 4 observed at the same time and moved out of Wichita county.
This was one of four landspout tornadoes that occurred concurrently.
This was one of four landspout tornadoes that occurred concurrently.
This was one of four landspout tornadoes that were occurring concurrently.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
6 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:22 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:22 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | DDC |
| 22:44 UTC | 23:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | DDC |
| 22:50 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Tornado 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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), 12:00Z
10.5 hours before the tornado, 122 km from the path. April 24, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 411 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -169 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 908 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 608 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 50 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 181 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 154 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.1
- Supercell composite
- 1.5
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z
1.5 hours after it, 122 km from the path. April 25, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 61 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -184 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 268 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2048 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 20 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 8 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -52 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 80 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.6 K/km
The radar
The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 117 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:24 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:09 UTC | TORNADO | 11 Se Leoti | Wichita, KS | TORNADO REPORTED TO LASTED FOR 30 MINUTES AND CONTINUED INTO SCOTT COUNTY. |
| 22:12 UTC | TORNADO | 11 Se Leoti | Wichita, KS | |
| 22:28 UTC | TORNADO | 12 Wsw Shallow Water | Scott, KS | MULTIPLE LANDSPOUT TYPE TORNADOES OCCURRING AT THE SAME TIME. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 24, 2015
20 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 24 | 11:58 AM CDT | EF1 | Jasper, TX | 13.3 | 50 | $75,000 | ||
| April 24 | 12:20 PM CDT | EF0 | Newton, TX | 3.9 | 50 | $5,000 | ||
| April 24 | 12:24 PM CDT | EF1 | Beauregard Parish, LA | 8.4 | 50 | $5,000 | ||
| April 24 | 3:37 PM CDT | EF1 | Runnels, TX | 8.4 | 350 | |||
| April 24 | 4:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Iberville Parish, LA | 0.2 | 30 | $50,000 | ||
| April 24 | 4:56 PM CDT | EF0 | Ellis, KS | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| April 24 | 5:00 PM CDT | EF0 | Ellis, KS | 0.8 | 50 | |||
| April 24 | 5:02 PM CDT | EF0 | Ellis, KS | 3.0 | 100 | |||
| April 24 | 5:09 PM CDT | EF0 | Wichita, KS | 5.3 | 75 | |||
| April 24 | 5:14 PM CDT | EF0 | Russell, KS | 0.2 | 40 | |||
| April 24 | 5:29 PM CDT | EF0 | Scott, KS | 0.8 | 75 | |||
| April 24 | 5:34 PM CDT | EF0 | Scott, KS | 0.9 | 75 | |||
| April 24 | 6:13 PM CDT | EF0 | Parker, TX | 1.0 | 40 | $1,000 | ||
| April 24 | 6:38 PM CDT | EF1 | Lincoln, KS | 0.2 | 40 | $150,000 | ||
| April 24 | 6:52 PM CDT | EF0 | Ellis, TX | 1.0 | 60 | $5,000 | ||
| April 24 | 7:48 PM CDT | EF0 | Zavala, TX | 1.3 | 50 | $5,000 | ||
| April 24 | 8:43 PM CDT | EF1 | Upshur, TX | 1.9 | 700 | $20,000 | ||
| April 24 | 9:16 PM CDT | EF1 | Cass, TX | 6.2 | 275 | |||
| April 24 | 10:40 PM CDT | EF1 | Claiborne Parish, LA | 9.3 | 820 | $30,000 | ||
| April 24 | 11:48 PM CDT | EF1 | Morehouse Parish, LA | 4.3 | 100 | $10,000 |
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.