EF1 tornado, Plains to Missler, Kansas, November 16, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

November 16, 2015

Touchdown

6:19 PM CST (00:19 UTC)

Lifted

6:30 PM CST (00:30 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

6.3 miles (10.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Meade County

Touchdown point

37.359, -100.516

Lift-off point

37.426, -100.441

Record number

1511161819-01

37 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DDC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 132 mph.

• Outbuilding destroyed. Path width around 0.5 mile
• Wood poles snapped. Path width 0.5 mile.
• Residence hit with house heavily damaged along with numerous outbuildings destroyed. path width 0.75 mile.
• Multiple Pivots flipped. Path width around 0.75 mile.

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

An unusually strong November severe weather episode occurred across the region. A very strong upper level low approached with with strong winds aloft. An unusually high amount of moisture and unseasonably unstable airmass were transported north into Kansas. Storms developed along a dry line but quickly moved off the dryline and became supercellular. Large, long tracked and rapidly moving tornadoes occurred along with instances of large and damaging hail.

This extremely wide tornado moving at 50 MPH moved out of Seward county at 18:06. It passed across almost the same identical area that the May 24th tornado took. This tornado heavily damaged trees, a home, pivot irrigation sprinklers and outbuildings. It moved into Gray county at 18:34.

This was a satellite tornado around the large Seward/Meade/Gray county tornado. It was also documented by video and still imagery. This tornado damaged several pivot irrigation sprinklers.

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

27 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:52 UTC, 27 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:01 UTC and running to 02:17 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 20:16 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 Dodge City radar (KDDC), 61 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:20 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

38 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.