EF0 tornado, Silver Lake, Kansas, April 26, 2016

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

April 26, 2016

Touchdown

5:42 PM CDT (22:42 UTC)

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Shawnee County

Touchdown point

39.131, -95.830

Lift-off point

39.131, -95.830

Record number

1604261642-01

Severe thunderstorms developed between 3 and 4pm on April 26th along an old outflow boundary and moved north northeast across northeast Kansas. The storms produced at least 2 brief weak tornadoes before 6pm however the storms thereafter become more widespread and continued to move across the same areas producing torrential flooding rains. Some areas received between 5 and 6 inches of rainfall from the storms over a 6-7 hour period. In fact, the recurrence interval of the rainfall was 50-75 years across eastern Wabaunsee and western Shawnee County from this event.

Storm chaser reported a confirmed tornado with several photos of a ragged funnel and reported that they saw debris kicked up on the ground. No damage and occurred in an open field.

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

34 minutes of warning. NWS TOP issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:08 UTC, 34 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:15 UTC and running to 02:00 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 Moderate 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 19:56 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 Topeka radar (KTWX), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:39 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 2016 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

35 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.