EF0 tornado, Hepler to Farlington, Kansas, February 28, 2017

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

February 28, 2017

Touchdown

10:37 PM CST (04:37 UTC)

Lifted

10:38 PM CST (04:38 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Crawford County

Touchdown point

37.650, -94.960

Lift-off point

37.651, -94.959

Record number

1702282237-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SGF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• 1 destroyed outbuilding. others heavily damaged. farm machinery moved. Several items moved divergent of storm path. most debris moved west with others blown north.

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

Strong to severe thunderstorms impacted much of the region from the afternoon of February 28th through the early morning hours of March 1st, 2017. These storms produced at least 83 reports of large hail and damaging wind, including three small tornadoes across the Missouri Ozarks and extreme southeast Kansas. The NWS in Springfield issued 33 severe thunderstorm warnings and 3 tornado warnings. The largest hail size reported was to the size of golf balls.

A National Weather Service storm survey revealed that an EF-1 tornado touched down approximately one mile southeast of Hepler, Kansas. The tornado destroyed one outbuilding and heavily damaging two other outbuildings. Several farm equipment items were also heavily damaged and thrown by the tornado. Estimated peak wind speed was 95 mph.

A National Weather Service storm survey indicated that an EF-0 tornado briefly touched down just north-northeast of Farlington on the west side of Farlington Lake along West Lake Road. Two carports were destroyed and there was damage to two homes. A tree was blown down. Estimated peak wind speed was 75 mph.

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

15 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:22 UTC, 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 03:05 UTC and running to 06:25 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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), 143 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:37 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 2017 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

29 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.