EF0 tornado, Matfield Green, Kansas, July 7, 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

July 7, 2016

Touchdown

8:53 PM CDT (01:53 UTC)

Lifted

8:54 PM CDT (01:54 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Chase County

Touchdown point

38.110, -96.370

Lift-off point

38.110, -96.368

Record number

1607071953-01

13 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ICT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 165 mph.

• All walls collapsed and house destroyed. Construction did not have walls anchored by bolts, only nails.

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

A lone supercell thunderstorm developed over southeastern Chase county on the evening of July 7th, 2016. The supercell rapidly became tornadic, initially producing a brief tornado touchdown (EF0) in southeast Chase County. The supercell continued to move to the southeast, producing 2 different tornado damage paths across Greenwood county. The first Greenwood county tornado was an EF3, which is only the 5th such strong tornado to occur in Kansas during the month of July since 1950. The second Greenwood county tornado, moved northwest to southeast, through the town of Eureka, producing EF2 damage. The supercell produced another brief touchdown (EF0) in open country in Wilson county.

A very brief touchdown of 15 seconds was reported over open country.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS ICT issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:40 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 01:24 UTC and running to 04:04 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 Marginal Risk. 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 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), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:51 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

9 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.