EF0 tornado, Tipton, Kansas, May 27, 2019

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

May 27, 2019

Touchdown

1:13 AM CDT (06:13 UTC)

Lifted

1:14 AM CDT (06:14 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Mitchell County

Touchdown point

39.351, -98.462

Lift-off point

39.351, -98.462

Record number

1905270013-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GID, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 94 mph.

• Tor lifted with debris in field

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

Severe winds, flooding, and a brief tornado occurred from multiple periods of thunderstorms from late afternoon on this Sunday evening into the nighttime hours. From 5 to 6 PM CST, thunderstorms moving from northwest Kansas into south central Nebraska clipped northern Phillips county. Anvil rain from thunderstorms over central Kansas began spreading into Rooks, Osborne, and Mitchell counties around 5 PM CST as well. This rain overspread all of north central Kansas over the following couple hours. Around 7 PM CST, the back edge of this rain began progressing across Rooks and Osborne counties. As this occurred, a wake low developed producing damaging winds in some locations. Numerous trees limbs were snapped in Plainville and these damaging winds extended all the way to Osborne where trees were damaged there as well. An unofficial home weather station measured a wind gust of 70 MPH in eastern Rooks county. As this rain exited north central Kansas, more scattered thunderstorms developed near Interstate 70 and moved northeast into the area. Just after midnight, a brief EF-0 tornado touched down near Tipton and damaged a residence and some nearby trees and power poles. Shortly thereafter, the same narrow line of storms produced a wind gust of 59 mph at an unofficial station over south central Mitchell county. Meanwhile, a mesoscale convective system had developed over southwest Kansas. The northern portion of this MCS crossed north central Kansas between 11 PM and 2 AM. While no severe storms occurred, more heavy rain fell over northern Phillips county, where heavy rain had occurred from earlier thunderstorms. Repeated episodes of heavy rain resulted in a swath of 2.5 to nearly 5 inches from northwest Kansas into south central Nebraska. This swath of rain clipped northern Phillips county and fell directly along the basin of Prairie Dog Creek. 4.90 inches of rain fell in 12 hours at Long Island.||At sunrise, a stationary front extended from the lower Great Lakes across northern Kansas to low pressure near Pueblo, Colorado. During the afternoon, this front moved into Nebraska as a warm front. The upper-level flow was highly-amplified with a deep trough over the Western U.S., and a subtropical high over Florida. Kansas was just west of a ridge that extended from Arkansas to Montana. Before rain began falling, temperatures were in the 70s with dewpoints in the 60s. Mid-level lapse rates were 7.0-7.5 C/km, resulting in MLCAPE around 2000 J/kg. Deep layer shear was initially 30-35 kt, but increased to 60 kt by midnight. MUCAPE was still around 1500 J/kg.

One home was damaged by this very brief tornado. A small portion of the roof was peeled off and attic insulation was plastered onto the home and a pickup truck parked outside. Siding was damaged, a small piece of shingle was wedged into a piece of farm equipment and a piece of straw was wedged between a sliding window. Two small trailers were turned.

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

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 04:29 UTC and running to 08:06 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 05:48 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 Grand Island radar (KUEX), 108 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:14 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

62 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 63 of them

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.