Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2018

EF0 tornado, Syracuse, Kansas, July 13, 2018

This EF0 tornado ran 2.9 miles across Hamilton County on July 13, 2018, touching down at 7:20 PM MDT and reaching 50 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
July 13, 2018
Touchdown
7:20 PM MDT (01:20 UTC)
Lifted
7:30 PM MDT (01:30 UTC)
On the ground
10 minutes
Path length
2.9 miles (4.7 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Hamilton County
Touchdown point
37.785, -101.906
Lift-off point
37.757, -101.925
Record number
1807131920-01

The damage survey

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DDC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 60 mph.

  • Landspout video taped moving south and then west as it dissipated. All it did was kick up dirt.
  • Landspout tornado videotaped moving south and then west as it was dissipating. It only kicked up dirt.

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

What the Weather Service recorded

A surface trough focused convergence as an upper level short wave trough lifted out of the Rockies.

A land spout tornado moved south and then turned west before dissipating.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:45 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

1.3 hours before the tornado, 177 km from the path. July 14, 2018.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 2018-07-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 462 joules per kilogram, CIN -33, lifted condensation level 2221 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 2018-07-14The 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 38 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 26 knots.1939Sfc1 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
462 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-33 J/kg
Surface CAPE
968 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2221 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
38 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
95 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.1
0-3 km lapse rate
8.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z

10.7 hours after it, 177 km from the path. July 14, 2018.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 2018-07-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 571 joules per kilogram, CIN -127, lifted condensation level 907 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 2018-07-14The 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 118 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 14 knots.1939Sfc1 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
571 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-127 J/kg
Surface CAPE
838 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
907 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
118 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
150 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 171 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:18 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
02:05 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD12 N ManterStanton, KS

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2018 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

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.