EF3 tornado, Mt Hope to Burrton, Kansas, May 6, 2015

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

May 6, 2015

Touchdown

4:49 PM CDT (21:49 UTC)

Lifted

5:17 PM CDT (22:17 UTC)

On the ground

28 minutes

Path length

16.5 miles (26.5 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$630,000

Counties

Sedgwick and Harvey counties

Touchdown point

37.840, -97.651

Lift-off point

38.075, -97.606

Record number

1505061549-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ICT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• minor damage to detached garage and carport. several tree branches strewn about
• Significant damage to cedar trees. They were completely snapped at 15ft.

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

A modest dryline developed across South Central and Central Kansas during the afternoon hours of May 6th, 2015. Moderate instability and shear combined to produce supercell thunderstorms across South Central Kansas and Central Kansas. |The supercell thunderstorms produced some large hail, but also produced five tornadoes across the area. One of the tornadoes was rated an EF3, with another rated an EF2.

Tornado touched down in an open field and quickly grew in strength as it moved slightly east of north. The tornado damaged 3 center pivot irrigation systems and caused damage at a farmstead by demolishing a single car detached garage and ripped off a carport that was attached to a barn. As the tornado moved on to the north, it encountered another farmstead. One house was directly in the path of the tornado and was completely leveled with nothing left standing (DI2 DOD9). The home was built in the late 1800's and was not secured to the foundation. Another home just to the northwest of the main home sustained significant damage to the southeast corner by taking down two small sections of the home. Another barn on the property was a complete loss and the trees experienced significant limb loss and some debarkation. One minor injury was reported. The person affected refused treatment. The tornado was 125 yards wide. This tornado moved into Harvey County.

Impressive tornado continued to moved across open country. A small hog barn had the roof blown off and significant tree damage was noted along the path. The worst of which was to a fence row of cedar trees in which they were completely snapped and partially debarked for a width of approximately 150 yards (DI28 DOD5). the maximum width along the path was 300 yards.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:41 UTC and running to 01:34 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 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.

Hutchinson (HUT), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Wichita radar (KICT), 37 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:48 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

47 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.