Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2017

EF0 tornado, Whitelaw, Kansas, October 2, 2017

This EF0 tornado ran 0.7 miles across Greeley County on October 2, 2017, touching down at 6:15 PM MDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
October 2, 2017
Touchdown
6:15 PM MDT (00:15 UTC)
Lifted
6:16 PM MDT (00:16 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.7 miles (1.2 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Greeley County
Touchdown point
38.380, -101.613
Lift-off point
38.387, -101.602
Record number
1710021815-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A cluster of thunderstorms moved northeast across parts of Northwest Kansas, with the majority of the severe weather occurring in the Oakley, Gove, and Quinter area. Five tornadoes occurred with these storms. The first tornado occurred in far western Greeley County, but most of them in Gove County with one of them inflicting damage to Quinter. Some of these storms also produced damaging straight-line winds which caused significant tree and structural damage in Quinter. Due to the repeated heavy rainfall of three and a half to over four inches over Logan, Gove and Graham counties, flash flooding lead to significant road damage occurring in Gove County.

A tornado was visible for almost a minute between CR V and X in the vicinity of CR 24 traveling northeast. No damage was reported with this tornado.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:29 UTC and running to 04:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:28 UTC23:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGLD
22:29 UTC04:00 UTCTornado WatchGLD
23:12 UTC00:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGLD

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:52 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 air that afternoon

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.

Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z

0.3 hours before the tornado, 164 km from the path. October 3, 2017.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 2017-10-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2098 joules per kilogram, CIN -53, lifted condensation level 1361 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 2017-10-03The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 71 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 37 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2098 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-53 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2877 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1361 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
71 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
234 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.0
Supercell composite
10.2
0-3 km lapse rate
7.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z

11.7 hours after it, 164 km from the path. October 3, 2017.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 2017-10-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 762 joules per kilogram, CIN -85, lifted condensation level 736 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 2017-10-03The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 142 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
762 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-85 J/kg
Surface CAPE
711 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
736 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
31 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
142 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
109 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.3
Supercell composite
4.8
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:15 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
23:07 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD13 Sse TribuneGreeley, KSREPORTED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA, TIME AND LOCATION RADAR ESTIMATED.
23:53 UTCTORNADO6 Nnw ModocScott, KS
23:58 UTCHAIL 1.59 W Scott State LakeScott, KS
00:02 UTCTSTM WND GST 667 Sw Scott State LakeScott, KS
00:05 UTCTORNADO6 Ne ModocScott, KS

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2017 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of October 2, 2017

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
October 26:53 PM CDTEF0Scott, KS4.5100
October 27:02 PM CDTEF1Scott, KS2.5150$150,000
October 27:09 PM CDTEF2Scott, KS18.3450
October 27:43 PM CDTEF1Gove, KS0.475$40,000
October 27:58 PM CDTEF0Gove, KS0.150$4,000
October 28:24 PM CDTEF1Gove, KS0.5100$75,000
October 211:42 PM CDTEF0Boone, NE0.320

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.