EF2 tornado, Ford to Ardell, Kansas, May 17, 2019

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 17, 2019

Touchdown

9:30 PM CDT (02:30 UTC)

Lifted

9:58 PM CDT (02:58 UTC)

On the ground

28 minutes

Path length

14.9 miles (23.9 km)

Path width

875 yards (800 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Ford and Edwards counties

Touchdown point

37.678, -99.712

Lift-off point

37.809, -99.498

Record number

1905172030-01

42 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DDC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 134 mph.

• Damage path extent approximately here.
• Tornado ending - some debris fallout
• Tornado began about half a mile east of this point.
• small out building destroyed and large tree limbs blown down

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

Severe thunderstorms developed in the panhandle of Oklahoma and up into southwest Kansas during the early evening along a dryline. Storms struggled to develop all afternoon due to warm air aloft but once they did form explosive growth was realized. Several long tracked and strong tornadoes occurred with the strongest storms.

This tornado that became very large very quickly moved into Edwards County at 2048 LST.

This tornado moved out of Ford County at 2048 LST.

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

42 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:48 UTC, 42 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 01:52 UTC and running to 03:13 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:51 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), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:26 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 2019 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.