EF1 tornado, Oketo to Bestwall, Kansas, June 11, 2022

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

June 11, 2022

Touchdown

5:53 PM CDT (22:53 UTC)

Lifted

6:11 PM CDT (23:11 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

6.3 miles (10.1 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Marshall County

Touchdown point

39.921, -96.597

Lift-off point

39.840, -96.649

Record number

2206111653-01

35 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OAX and 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.

• Several power poles broken along highway RFD straight line winds
• Documenting due to number of power poles down appears to be nearly 2 dozen snapped along highway
• Large healthy tree snapped
• Tree blown toward SSE appears wind damage

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

One large high precipitation supercell formed near the Nebraska Kansas border and tracked south during the evening of June 11th producing widespread damaging straight line winds of 80-110 mph along with several small tornadoes. The majority of property damage was done by straight line winds within what was the rear flank downdraft of the supercell which was moving south southwest. The widespread destructive winds within the RFD often preceded any smaller vortex with the small tornadoes making damage from tornadoes difficult to distinguish from the downbursts and microbursts within the larger RFD swath. We believe there were at least 5 tornadoes that evening all EF0 or EF1. Ironically, the magnitude of damage from straight line winds in spots exceeded that of the smaller tornadoes.

Damage survey revealed a garage was destroyed on the south side of state line road with debris thrown north back into Nebraska (across the road). A sporadic damage path moved southeast and ended around highway 77 where power poles were broken along with some tree limb damage. This tornado moved south out of Nebraska and ended in Kansas.

A sporadic damage path extended south southwest into the city of Marysville. The damage from any small tornado is nearly indistinguishable from the widespread 80-100 mph straight line wind damage from the rear flank downdraft hybrid wet downburst that preceded it. A few buildings on the west side of Marysville were damaged by the enhanced winds associated with the small tornado. The remainder of the damage was tree branches snapped and uprooted trees.

Storm survey and storm chaser video and photos revealed a brief tornado just northeast of Marysville. This tornado did damage to a barn and power pole short path. The damage to a lumber shop south of highway 36 appears to have been related to a possible RFD surge south (straight line winds) and not this tornado.

Another tornado path that was nearly indistinguishable from the widespread straight line wind damage that preceded it into the north side of Blue Rapids. It appears that a tornado did damage along a path that traveled just north of a Georgia Pacific Plant along and just west of highway 77 where it derailed train cars then pushed south into the river bottoms snapping trees. The track became very broad as it approached the river where it appears it transitioned to a damaging downburst surge of 100-105 mph straight line winds across the city of Blue Rapids with the worst damage on the west side of the city.

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

25 minutes of warning. NWS TOP issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:28 UTC, 25 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:37 UTC and running to 02:13 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 19:54 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 Topeka radar (KTWX), 104 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:50 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 2022 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.