EF0 tornado, Tipton, Kansas, June 3, 2015

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

June 3, 2015

Touchdown

10:28 PM CDT (03:28 UTC)

Lifted

10:31 PM CDT (03:31 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Mitchell County

Touchdown point

39.334, -98.441

Lift-off point

39.336, -98.437

Record number

1506032128-01

13 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 100 mph.

• Grain bin blown 3/4 mile away to the west
• Damage path looking southwest. Approximate end point.

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

With a fairly classic meteorological setup for June severe weather in place, numerous semi-discrete strong to severe thunderstorms blossomed across this six-county North Central Kansas area on this Wednesday evening the 3rd into early Thursday morning the 4th. While these storms yielded mainly quarter size hail, and one report up to 2 diameter south of Burr Oak, the storm of the night was a slow-moving tornadic supercell that peaked in intensity from far east-central Osborne into central Mitchell County between 10 p.m.-midnight CDT. This storm produced three confirmed after-dark tornadoes, two rated EF-1 with path lengths around one mile near the Osborne/Mitchell County line west of Tipton, and a brief EF-0 touchdown slightly east of Tipton. The two stronger tornadoes, one of which moved east and one west under the parent mesocyclone, damaged or destroyed several farm outbuildings, but no injuries occurred. Around midnight CDT, this storm began losing supercell structure and weakening as it drifted northeast through the Beloit area. In addition to tornadoes, this storm produced torrential rainfall of at least 3-4 in a short time across central and western portions of Mitchell County. Other storms produced a swath of heavy rain of generally 1.50-3.00 across much of southern Jewell County. However, the majority of the six-county area totaled no more than 0.50-1.00. ||Breaking down the overall event timing, several strong to severe storms first blossomed over Rooks and Osborne counties between 700-830 p.m. CDT. Over the next few hours, activity gradually expanded to the north and east, as the aforementioned tornadic supercell took center stage around nightfall. Between 130-230 a.m. CDT on the 4th, storms vacated the entire six-county area to the north and east. Several hours later between 6-8 a.m. CDT, additional elevated storms flared up primarily east of Highway 281, but were non-severe. Turning to the synoptic and mesoscale situation: with a generally west-east oriented surface front draped through the northern half of Kansas, seasonably strong instability and shear in place, and a strengthening 30-40 knot southerly low level jet ramping up during the night, this was a well-anticipated severe weather event. On the large scale, the Central Plains was under broad west-southwest flow aloft, well-downstream from a large trough centered over the West Coast. While modest capping held storms at bay through the afternoon, the combination of subtle, low-amplitude disturbances aloft and increasing lift along the developing low level jet sparked a rapid evening flare-up. At the surface, the evening hours featured steady easterly breezes and dewpoints in the mid-upper 60s F. Around the time the tornadic supercell developed, the mesoscale environment featured mixed-layer CAPE around 2000 J/kg, 0-6 kilometer deep-layer wind shear around 30 knots, and fairly strong 0-1 kilometer storm-relative helicity of at least 150 m2/s2.

This was a brief tornado that toppled an empty grain bin, and also topped an elm tree and knocked over a metal TV antenna before lifting.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:15 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:33 UTC and running to 07:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:05 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), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:25 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 2015 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.