EF1 tornado, Paola Majeski Arpt to Wagstaff, Kansas, September 18, 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

September 18, 2015

Touchdown

7:09 PM CDT (00:09 UTC)

Lifted

7:35 PM CDT (00:35 UTC)

On the ground

26 minutes

Path length

9.3 miles (14.9 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

County

Miami County

Touchdown point

38.641, -94.953

Lift-off point

38.656, -94.783

Record number

1509181809-01

22 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS EAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Damage was inconsistent with damage to other nearby structures and vegetation. Other structures indicated damage consistent with EF1.
• House not properly fastened to foundation.
• At least 3 Unsecured RVs rolled and destroyed. 1 non-critical injury
• Numerous large trees also uprooted at this residence.

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

After a generally rainy and cloudy, enough sunshine broke through late in the afternoon to enable a supercell thunderstorm to develop, along a southeastward advancing cold front. The supercell produced several tornadoes with a rating up to an EF-1. The storm developed just prior to the start of Friday night football games. Officials at one game evacuated the stands prior to a direct hit on the stadium. They credited the tornado warnings with providing enough lead time to get people inside and into safety before the tornado hit.

A NWS survey team concluded that the tornado developed near the southeast side of Hillsdale Lake, traveling a few degrees north of east, before dissipating in rural Miami county between Spring Hill and Louisburg. The tornado caused one non-critical injury at a trailer park at Hillsdale Lake. A single wide manufactured home was rolled but remained essentially intact. Three unsecured RVs were also rolled and destroyed.

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.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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 Pleasant Hill radar (KEAX), 55 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:07 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.