Unrated tornado, Nickerson to South Hutchinson, Kansas, May 5, 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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

May 5, 2019

Touchdown

8:00 PM CDT (01:00 UTC)

Lifted

8:01 PM CDT (01:01 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Reno County

Touchdown point

38.002, -97.964

Lift-off point

38.002, -97.961

Record number

1905051900-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ICT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 112 mph.

• several uprooted and snapped- near center of track
• south edge of circulation. trees uprooted, snapped
• outbuilding 100 foot long completely destoyed. debris lofted 50-100 yds to the west. Owner says beam were 3500 lb. each.
• outbuilding looking north. total destruction of 100 foot long by 50 foot wide buidling. Damage lofted over 500-1000 yds to the W-SW.

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

Supercell thunderstorms developed across portions of central Kansas, during the late afternoon and evening of May 5th, 2019. The supercells initially produced large hail, but quickly became tornado producing storms, as they moved east southeast. Five different tornadoes ending touching down across Barton, Rice and Reno counties, as the supercell moved to the southeast. As the supercell moved into the Wichita metro area, the storm produced copious amounts of small hail, that covered ground to almost a foot deep, on the west side of Wichita.

A tornado touched down over open country and then moved across a farmstead causing damage to several of the out buildings.

This tornado had a peculiar movement from the northeast to the southwest. It initially touched down, and destroyed a 100 foot long pole barn, lofting some of the 1000 pound girders into a nearby field to the west. The tornado then curled back to the southeast hitting another farmstead further south, collapsing a pole barn and knocking down trees all around a farmhouse. Occupants of the house were home, but were uninjured.

Brief touchdown over open country.

Brief touchdown over open country.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS ICT issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:44 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:51 UTC and running to 03:21 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 02:12 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 Wichita radar (KICT), 60 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:00 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.