EF2 tornado, Manhattan to Zeandale, 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

June 11, 2022

Touchdown

7:20 PM CDT (00:20 UTC)

Lifted

7:22 PM CDT (00:22 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10 million

County

Riley County

Touchdown point

39.197, -96.576

Lift-off point

39.195, -96.571

Record number

2206111820-01

14 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TOP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• Barn debris moved northeast
• Lots of concentrated damage here - could a tor have crossed the road here?
• Damage at KSU.roof lifted off a building into the chi o house.
• Video from chaser showed what appears to be a lowering with small fingers reaching to the ground for a brief period before moving south over the interstate. Location is estimated from video and radar. No damage reported so will be classified as EFU.

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.

Two surveys were done by NWS for this damage. It appears that a very short path narrow tornado occurred embedded on the northeast flank of small enhanced downburst that created widespread damaging north to northwest winds. Several homes were heavily damaged with the debris field blown to the northeast or approximately perpendicular to the movement. It appears the tornado was narrow and only 25-50 yards at the widest.

A storm chaser showed video of what appeared to be a brief funnel near the ground in open country north of Interstate 70. Any actual contact with the ground was brief and no damage was noted or reported. The feature lost its organization as it moved south over I-70.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS TOP issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:04 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:31 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.

Manhattan (MHK), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Topeka radar (KTWX), 37 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:18 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.