Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2015
EF0 tornado, Winona, Kansas, June 5, 2015
This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Logan County on June 5, 2015, touching down at 9:30 PM CDT and reaching 10 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
- June 5, 2015
- Touchdown
- 9:30 PM CDT (02:30 UTC)
- Lifted
- 9:31 PM CDT (02:31 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Logan County
- Touchdown point
- 39.068, -101.209
- Lift-off point
- 39.067, -101.207
- Record number
- 1506052030-01
What the Weather Service recorded
During the evening severe thunderstorms moved across Northwest Kansas. A large tornado occurred in northern Logan county. The largest hail reported was golf ball near Winona. Late in the evening heavy rainfall caused flooding to occur south west of Atwood in the South Beaver river valley where water was estimated to be a foot deep over the road at the intersection of Road 15 and Road M.5.
A large tornado moved ENE from just east of Winona and crossed to the south side of Highway 40. The tornado then moved in a NNE direction, again crossing Highway 40 near Page City. No tornado damage was reported by the emergency manager, but in Page City a large shed was damaged by downburst winds.
A brief satellite tornado was observed just northwest of a larger tornado. No damage was reported.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
35 minutes of warning. NWS GLD issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:55 UTC, 35 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:30 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:44 UTC and running to 04:27 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:44 UTC | 04:27 UTC | Tornado Watch | GLD |
| 01:43 UTC | 02:31 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GLD |
| 01:55 UTC | 02:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | GLD |
| 02:02 UTC | 02:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GLD |
| 02:27 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | GLD |
| 02:45 UTC | 03:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | GLD |
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 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 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
2.5 hours before the tornado, 184 km from the path. June 6, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 584 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -124 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2083 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2194 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 8 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -2 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 66 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.5
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.9 K/km
Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z
9.5 hours after it, 184 km from the path. June 6, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 190 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -167 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 56 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1273 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 26 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 130 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 97 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.8 K/km
The radar
The Goodland radar (KGLD), 54 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:32 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:43 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 3 Wnw Colby | Thomas, KS | |
| 01:05 UTC | TORNADO | 8 N Colby | Thomas, KS | |
| 01:15 UTC | HAIL 1 | Goodland | Sherman, KS | NICKEL TO QUARTER SIZE HAIL |
| 01:15 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 3 S Goodland | Sherman, KS | |
| 01:22 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | Goodland | Sherman, KS | 9TH AND KANSAS IN GOODLAND |
| 02:11 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.39 | 9 Nne Goodland | Sherman, KS | 1.39 INCHES OF RAIN IN ABOUT 1 HOUR. |
| 02:20 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 1 Ene Winona | Logan, KS | |
| 02:24 UTC | TORNADO | E Winona | Logan, KS | QUARTER TO A HALF A MILE EAST OF WINONA. |
| 02:32 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Ne Monument | Logan, KS | RELAYED VIA THE SPOTTER NETWORK. LARGE STOVEPIPE TORNADO OBSERVED. |
| 02:32 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Ene Winona | Logan, KS | RELAYED VIA THE SPOTTER NETWORK. LARGE STOVEPIPE TORNADO OBSERVED. |
| 02:43 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Nw Monument | Logan, KS | LARGE TORNADO ON THE GROUND. RELAYED VIA THE SPOTTER NETWORK. |
| 02:43 UTC | TORNADO | 5 E Winona | Logan, KS | LARGE TORNADO ON THE GROUND. RELAYED VIA THE SPOTTER NETWORK. |
| 02:56 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 W Monument | Logan, KS | EAST WALL OF SHED IN PAGE CITY BLOWN OUT. SLEEPER BLOWN OFF OLD SEMI. ESTIMATED TIME OF REPORT. |
| 02:56 UTC | TORNADO | 6 W Monument | Logan, KS | CONE TORNADO OBSERVED AT COUNTY ROAD 290 AND US 40. |
| 03:08 UTC | TORNADO | 6 Wnw Monument | Logan, KS | LARGE CONE TORNADO OBSERVED NEAR COUNTY ROAD 300 AND THE THOMAS/LOGAN COUNTY LINE. |
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 June 5, 2015
7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 5 | 3:24 AM MDT | EF2 | Kit Carson, CO | 1.5 | 300 | $30,000 | ||
| June 5 | 1:13 PM MDT | EF1 | Elbert, CO | 0.6 | 50 | |||
| June 5 | 3:15 PM PDT | EF1 | Mineral, NV | 1.5 | 40 | |||
| June 5 | 4:54 PM MDT | EF0 | Washington, CO | 0.1 | 100 | |||
| June 5 | 6:20 PM MDT | EF0 | Kit Carson, CO | 4.5 | 150 | |||
| June 5 | 6:45 PM MDT | EF0 | Kit Carson, CO | 2.0 | 150 | |||
| June 5 | 9:24 PM CDT | EF0 | Logan, KS | 8.6 | 100 |
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.