Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2015
EF0 tornado, Lake City, Kansas, April 8, 2015
This EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Barber County on April 8, 2015, touching down at 8:15 PM CDT and reaching 50 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 8, 2015
- Touchdown
- 8:15 PM CDT (01:15 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:16 PM CDT (01:16 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (0.9 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Barber County
- Touchdown point
- 37.256, -98.802
- Lift-off point
- 37.258, -98.792
- Record number
- 1504081915-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A warm front lifting north and a dryline advancing in from the west were the triggering mechanisms for thunderstorms during the late afternoon and evening.
This was a brief and weak tornado.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
What forecasters said that day
The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Dodge City, KS wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Apr 8, 6:37 PM CDT, 1 hour 38 minutes earlier.
Area forecast discussion, Apr 8, 6:37 PM CDT, 1 hour 38 minutes before
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</html>Hazardous weather outlook, Apr 8, 5:03 AM CDT, 15 hours 12 minutes before
HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DODGE CITY KS 503 AM CDT WED APR 8 2015 KSZ030-031-043>046-061>066-074>081-084>090-091000- TREGO-ELLIS-SCOTT-LANE-NESS-RUSH-HAMILTON-KEARNY-FINNEY-HODGEMAN- PAWNEE-STAFFORD-STANTON-GRANT-HASKELL-GRAY-FORD-EDWARDS-KIOWA- PRATT-MORTON-STEVENS-SEWARD-MEADE-CLARK-COMANCHE-BARBER- 503 AM CDT WED APR 8 2015 THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR PORTIONS OF CENTRAL...SOUTH CENTRAL...SOUTHWEST AND WEST CENTRAL KANSAS. .DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT AREAS OF DENSE FOG WILL OCCUR FOR A FEW HOURS EARLY THIS MORNING ACROSS PARTS OF FAR SOUTHWEST KANSAS. THE FOG WILL BE DIMINISHING AFTER SUNRISE. CRITICAL FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED THIS AFTERNOON ALONG AND SOUTH OF A LINE FROM SYRACUSE AND LAKIN THROUGH SUBLETTE TO ASHLAND WHERE RELATIVE HUMIDITY LEVELS WILL FALL BELOW 15 PERCENT AND SOUTHWEST WINDS INCREASE TO 10 TO 20 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 30 MPH. THERE WILL BE A THREAT FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS OVER SOUTH CENTRAL KANSAS AROUND PRATT AND MEDICINE LODGE. THE GREATEST SEVERE WEATHER THREAT WILL BE LARGE HAIL UP TO TENNIS BALL SIZE ALONG WITH DAMAGING WINDS. AN ISOLATED TORNADO COULD ALSO BE POSSIBLE. .DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...THURSDAY THROUGH TUESDAY THERE WILL BE A CHANCE FOR THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS SOUTHWEST KANSAS OVER THIS UPCOMING WEEKEND. IT IS TOO EARLY TO TELL WITH ANY CERTAINTY HOW SEVERE THE STORMS MAY BE. .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT... SPOTTERS MAY BE NEEDED FOR STORM REPORTS OVER SOUTH CENTRAL KANSAS LATER THIS AFTERNOON && FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT OUR WEBPAGE AT HTTP://WEATHER.GOV/DDC
In the hours before
Local storm report, Apr 8, 5:48 PM CDT, 2 hours 27 minutes before
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DODGE CITY KS
548 PM CDT WED APR 08 2015
..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..
0516 PM HAIL 4 SE BUTTERMILK 37.06N 99.29W
04/08/2015 E0.88 INCH COMANCHE KS PUBLIC
THE HAIL NEARLY COVERED THE GROUND.
0516 PM HAIL 7 S MEDICINE LODGE 37.19N 98.58W
04/08/2015 E0.88 INCH BARBER KS PUBLIC
0515 PM HAIL 6 ESE BUTTERMILK 37.07N 99.25W
04/08/2015 E0.75 INCH COMANCHE KS PUBLIC
&&
LRUTHILocal storm report, Apr 8, 6:29 PM CDT, 1 hour 46 minutes before
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</html>Local storm report, Apr 8, 6:58 PM CDT, 1 hour 17 minutes before
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</html>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
1.3 hours before the tornado, 113 km from the path. April 9, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 15 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -409 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 357 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2152 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 64 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 351 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 466 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.1 K/km
The surface observations
Medicine_lodge (P28), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Vance AFB radar (KVNX), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:16 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.
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 8, 2015
6 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.