Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2019

EF1 tornado, Marysville to Home, Kansas, May 24, 2019

From Marysville to Home, this EF1 tornado ran 9.6 miles across Marshall County on May 24, 2019, touching down at 3:40 AM CDT 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 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

    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
EF1
Date
May 24, 2019
Touchdown
3:40 AM CDT (08:40 UTC)
Lifted
3:50 AM CDT (08:50 UTC)
On the ground
10 minutes
Path length
9.6 miles (15.4 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Marshall County
Touchdown point
39.825, -96.688
Lift-off point
39.882, -96.522
Record number
1905240240-01

The damage survey

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TOP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

  • 3000 gallon gas tank was tossed across Highway 36 into the Marysville Country Club golf course.
  • Roof was peeled back on a farm shed.

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 cluster of severe t-storms moved across parts of north central and northeast Kansas during the early morning hours of May 24th. Two small tornadoes did occur and produced damaged to parts of the city of Marysville. The storm produced another small tornado in Nemaha county. Both were rated EF1 based on damage indicators provided by EM and other sources of imagery.

Photos submitted show damage along a nearly 10 mile long track from just southwest of Marysville through parts of the city then into rural Marshall county. Damage indicators and degree of damage suggest EF1 intensity with winds to around 105 mph.

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 06:38 UTC and running to 10:21 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
15:00 UTC12:00 UTCFlash Flood WatchTOP
00:42 UTC05:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WatchTOP
00:57 UTC01:31 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningTOP
01:46 UTC02:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningTOP
06:38 UTC10:21 UTCTornado WatchTOP
09:04 UTC09:21 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningTOP
21:44 UTC23:48 UTCFlood WarningTOP

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. The outlook in force was issued at 05:33 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.

Topeka, KS (KFOE), 00:00Z

8.7 hours before the tornado, 126 km from the path. May 24, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Topeka, KS at 00:00Z on 2019-05-24Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 290 joules per kilogram, CIN -125, lifted condensation level 800 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Topeka, KS at 00:00Z on 2019-05-24The 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 185 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 53 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
290 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-125 J/kg
Surface CAPE
176 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
800 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
53 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
185 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
247 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.2
Supercell composite
5.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Topeka, KS (KFOE), 12:00Z

3.3 hours after it, 126 km from the path. May 24, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Topeka, KS at 12:00Z on 2019-05-24Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1022 joules per kilogram, CIN -72, lifted condensation level 779 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Topeka, KS at 12:00Z on 2019-05-24The 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 232 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 48 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
1022 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-72 J/kg
Surface CAPE
618 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
779 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
48 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
232 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
210 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.0
Supercell composite
3.2
0-3 km lapse rate
5.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Topeka radar (KTWX), 100 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:41 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
07:54 UTCTSTM WND DMG2 Nnw BeattieMarshall, KS5 INCH TREE LIMBS DOWN. RADAR ESTIMATED TIME.
08:20 UTCTSTM WND DMG5 Wnw OneidaNemaha, KSDELAYED REPORT...A HOME WAS DAMAGE AT THIS LOCATION. LARGE TREES WERE SNAPPED. A GRAIN BIN WAS THROWN FROM ITS BASE. A SHED WAS ALSO DESTROYED.
08:45 UTCTORNADOMarysvilleMarshall, KSDELAYED REPORT...NUMEROUS REPORTS OF DAMAGE ACROSS THE CITY HAVE BEEN REPORTED INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING: TWO 30,000 GALLON GAS TANKS WERE BLOWN ACROSS HIGHWAY 36, NUMEROUS POWER LINES AND TREES SNAPPED WITHIN THE CITY, A
08:50 UTCTSTM WND DMG1 E MarysvilleMarshall, KSEMPTY STORAGE TANKS FLIPPED ACROSS ROAD. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR.
08:50 UTCTSTM WND DMGMarysvilleMarshall, KSSEVERAL LARGE TREE BRANCHES DOWN IN THE CITY OF MARYSVILLE. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR.
08:52 UTCTSTM WND DMG3 Ene MarysvilleMarshall, KSPOWER POLE AND TREE DAMAGE NEAR 12TH AND JAYHAWK.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 24, 2019

18 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 244:19 AM CDTEF1Nemaha, KS5.950
May 2412:33 PM CDTEF1McDonough, IL7.850
May 2412:41 PM CDTEF1McDonough, IL1.930
May 241:10 PM CDTEF0Fulton, IL1.220$10,000
May 244:19 PM CDTEF1Butler, KS1.475
May 244:53 PM CDTUnratedButler, KS0.250
May 245:24 PM CDTEF1Barnes, ND4.1150
May 246:11 PM CDTEF0Barnes, ND0.275
May 246:20 PM CDTEF0Steele, ND4.5150
May 246:35 PM CDTEF0Jackson, OK0.520$20,000
May 246:36 PM CDTEF1Johnson, IA10.875
May 247:22 PM CDTEF0Mahnomen, MN6.6200
May 247:27 PM CDTEF0Cedar, IA0.010
May 247:30 PM CDTEF1Mahnomen, MN3.5200
May 248:00 PM CDTEF0Jackson, MO0.350
May 248:08 PM CDTEF0Jackson, MO0.725
May 248:19 PM CDTEF0Lafayette, MO2.740
May 248:40 PM CDTEF0Vernon, WI0.120$1,000

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.