Unrated tornado, Hitschmann, Kansas, May 26, 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 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 26, 2021

Touchdown

5:10 PM CDT (22:10 UTC)

Lifted

5:11 PM CDT (22:11 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Barton County

Touchdown point

38.650, -98.520

Lift-off point

38.651, -98.516

Record number

2105261610-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ICT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 84 mph.

• Brief touchdown over open country.
• Very brief touchdown over open country.
• Looked to have circulation to the north of the homestead and all debris was strewn back to the SSW.
• Winds from the north slammed into the grain bin and caused the northern bin to collapse.

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

This event broke the tornado drought for the NWS Wichita office of 611 days. Storms developed during the late afternoon hours on Wednesday, May 26th over Central Kansas near a warm front. A very moist and unstable air mass was in place which allowed storms to rapidly become severe, producing hail up to baseball size along with a few brief tornadoes. The strongest tornado caused some damage across far northern Rice county. These same storms also produced very heavy rainfall which led to some flooding.

Very brief touchdown in open country with no damage reported.

Brief touchdown of less than one minute in an open field. No damage was reported.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS ICT issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:44 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:11 UTC and running to 03:47 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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.

Russell (RSL), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Wichita radar (KICT), 145 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:11 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

20 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.