EF1 tornado, Selden, Kansas, May 24, 2021

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.

Rating

EF1

Date

May 24, 2021

Touchdown

6:06 PM CDT (23:06 UTC)

Lifted

6:36 PM CDT (23:36 UTC)

On the ground

30 minutes

Path length

5.9 miles (9.4 km)

Path width

850 yards (777 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Sheridan County

Touchdown point

39.531, -100.638

Lift-off point

39.563, -100.543

Record number

2105241706-01

65 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GLD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Large tree fell on house and knocked off porch roof.
• 6 by 6 posts anchoring into ground about 2 feet deep
• Roots at least 10 feet tall in image
• Roof blown a block to the north

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

Storms initially developed around mid-day in west-central Kansas along an outflow boundary producing heavy rain and up to 60 mph thunderstorm wind gusts in Wichita and Logan counties. Throughout the afternoon, the environment became more favorable for storms as the initial storms expanded north to the Nebraska border with embedded supercell storms. During the afternoon, these storms were able to produce multiple tornadoes, up to golf ball sized hail, and up to 60 mph thunderstorm wind gusts.

A large, multi-vortex tornado moved across northwestern Sheridan County, Kansas, impacting the town of Selden. The tornado started west of town initially and moved slowly to the east, eventually crossing Highway 83. As the tornado crossed the highway, it started to impact structures on the west side of Selden, and eventually moving across the town. In town, damage was widespread and quiet concentrated. At one point, the tornado reached a width of one half mile wide. Damage consisted of thousands of broken tree limbs, hundreds of uprooted and snapped trees, shingles off and pieces of roofing removed from residences and buildings, many farm outbuildings either missing roofing material, walls damaged, and/or the building completely collapsed and removed from its foundation, windows broken out of houses, buildings, and vehicles, snapped power poles, overturned irrigation pivots, overturned semis and rail cars, and several grain silos blown over.||The tornado then proceeded to the east, exiting town and heading towards the Highway 83 and Highway 383 split. There were a few more irrigation pivots overturned, as well as power poles snapped. The tornado appeared to dissipate as it neared the Highway 83 and Highway 383 split due to a lack of any visible damage at that intersection.||The challenge with this survey was there were multiple vortices causing damage. Therefore, there were a few areas of more concentrated high-end EF-1 damage with broad/widespread EF-0 to EF-1 damage.||There was one minor injury with this event. The town tornado sirens were not functioning as a result of a power outage. Therefore, fire fighters jumped into their vehicles to drive through town to warn people of the coming tornado. Powerlines fell upon one of the trucks, striking a fire fighter in the back of the neck. Injury was treated on scene.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS GLD issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:46 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:29 UTC and running to 01:15 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 19:57 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.

Oberlin (OIN), 32 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 97 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:09 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 2021 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.