EF3 tornado, Pawnee Rock to Hoisington, Kansas, May 16, 2017

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

May 16, 2017

Touchdown

7:59 PM CDT (00:59 UTC)

Lifted

8:41 PM CDT (01:41 UTC)

On the ground

42 minutes

Path length

26.6 miles (42.9 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$658,000

Counties

Pawnee and Barton counties

Touchdown point

38.199, -99.019

Lift-off point

38.546, -98.800

Record number

1705161859-01

12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DDC and 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.

• Pivot rolled 1/2 mile south
• pivot down on west side of road, too
• mobile home just west of main path lost roof and exterior walls.
• one home built in 1890 completely destroyed and another home that was next door and just north of tornado core winds had all walls collapsed except for one corner. we will have before and after pics of farmhouse. they are on twitter.

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

A cyclic supercell thunderstorm produced a long track tornado across portions of Barton county, Kansas. The tornado initially touched down 3 miles west of Larned, Kansas (See NWS Dodge City, Kansas narrative for more information on the initial touchdown), traveling northeast, near Pawnee Rock, Kansas to 3 miles west of Great Bend, Kansas to just west of Hoisington, Kansas. The tornado was on the ground for 27 miles with damage rated from EF0 to a high end EF3 (3 miles west of Great Bend, Kansas). Two minor injuries were reported. Another minor tornado touchdown occurred in open country.

This long track tornado moved in from Pawnee County. Law Enforcement reported the tornado just south of the county line near Pawnee Rock and then followed it as it moved to the NE. The tornado moved through the west side of Pawnee Rock causing sporadic EF1 and isolated EF2 damage to several homes and one school type facility. The tornado continued to move to the NNE causing EF2 damage to a couple of homes on West Barton County Road. One residence was a mobile home that lost the far east side of the structure and all roofing material. One injury was noted at that location as they did not seek shelter. The home just to the west lost the east half of structure with the occupants seeking refuge in the basement. Of note, a Ford F-150 was thrown or rolled approximately 75 to hundred yards away from its original location. Further to the NE, the tornado strengthened considerably as noted by complete destruction of an 1890 farm house. With the age of the home and no anchoring being present due to the structure resting on cinder blocks along with a lack of debarking, a higher rating could not be justified though the amount of devastation to the structure itself pointed towards a possible higher rating. Three occupants sought refuge in the basement and were unharmed. The next door neighbor's home was also considerably damaged with all of the structure being demolished except for one corner section. The tornado then continued to the NE over open country damaging trees and power lines along the way before dissipating NW of Hoisington. A total of 44 parcels were affected. Ten homes were deemed total losses. The estimated property value losses were estimated at $658,000.

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

34 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:25 UTC, 34 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:16 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:50 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), 115 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:58 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

19 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.