EF3 tornado, Belle Center to Oronogo, Kansas, May 22, 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 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 22, 2019

Touchdown

8:05 PM CDT (01:05 UTC)

Lifted

8:19 PM CDT (01:19 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

9.2 miles (14.8 km)

Path width

440 yards (402 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5.3 million

Counties

Cherokee and Jasper counties

Touchdown point

37.110, -94.624

Lift-off point

37.193, -94.493

Record number

1905221905-01

17 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SGF and NWS TSA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 140 mph.

• Broken tree limbs. Intermittent path NE of here to previous points.
• Trees uprooted. Downed power lines.
• 5 snapped power poles. Uprooted trees.
• loss of roof and exterior walls failure.

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

Multiple rounds of storms producing heavy rainfall, severe winds, hail and tornadoes moved across the Missouri Ozarks from May 20th and into the early morning hours of May 24th as upper level disturbances interacted with a slow moving but powerful storm system over the central Plains. Tornadoes occurred with each round, with the strongest and most numerous tornadoes occurring during the late afternoon and evening of the 22nd. On the anniversary of the Joplin Tornado off 2011, another tornado, rated EF-3 struck the north side of Joplin. This storm system eventually produced subsequent tornadoes in Golden City, Eldon and Jefferson City. Unfortunately there were three fatalities as a result of the tornado in Golden City. The cumulative rainfall caused areas of flash flooding with some flooding lingering across the region. Some locations in southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri reported in excess of 8 inches of rainfall over the 72 hour period. .

A National Weather Service storm survey determined that a tornado touched down north of Galena in Cherokee County, Kansas and moved quickly across the Missouri state line along SE 118th Street. The tornado increased in intensity as it tracked along West Evergreen Road and North Pheasant Lane before crossing Turkey Creek, causing damage to outbuildings and roofs. Sporadic minor damage continued to Fir Road before damage intensified, including throwing several cars from a salvage yard east of Highway JJ. It then increased further to EF-3 intensity as it carved a path through the Briarbrook Country Club subdivision with dozens of well-built two and three story homes suffering significant damage. Numerous other homes had light to moderate roof damage. The tornado uprooted or snapped numerous trees and several power poles were snapped or leaning. Damaged occurred to several outbuildings between Highway 171 and Ivy Road before the tornado then lifted as it crossed 24th Drive.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:54 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:09 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:36 UTC and running to 02:46 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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 Springfield radar (KSGF), 103 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:06 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

34 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.