Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2022
EF1 tornado, Narka, Kansas, June 7, 2022
This EF1 tornado ran 3.1 miles across Republic County on June 7, 2022, touching down at 10:15 PM CDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF1
- Date
- June 7, 2022
- Touchdown
- 10:15 PM CDT (03:15 UTC)
- Lifted
- 10:25 PM CDT (03:25 UTC)
- On the ground
- 10 minutes
- Path length
- 3.1 miles (4.9 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Republic County
- Touchdown point
- 39.961, -97.425
- Lift-off point
- 39.939, -97.375
- Record number
- 2206072115-01
The damage survey
12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TOP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 93 mph.
- Mature cottonwood snapped blown toward SE
- Typical scene in morroville tree limbs down large and small some trees snapped looks like Washington damage throughout town
- Two grain bins showing stress from what appears to have been 80-90mph northwest winds. Photo is looking southeast so you see the northwest side of the bins
- Large grain bin crushed from what appears to have been a NNW wind. Unknown cause could be tornado
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A cluster of storms moved out of Nebraska during the evening of June 7th and evolved into a line of storms that accelerated southeast across central and northeast Kansas. At least 2 small tornadoes occurred along with widespread damaging straight line winds of 60 to 80 mph.
Damage survey noted damage to main grain elevator in town with a sporadic damage path noted to the southeast to trees limbs with lack of access further southeast unable to determine how much further southeast path occurred. Area primarily fallow field or newly planted corn so few DI to see from ground around end point.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 23:38 UTC and running to 04:53 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:38 UTC | 04:53 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | TOP |
| 02:40 UTC | 03:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TOP |
| 03:15 UTC | 04:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TOP |
| 03:19 UTC | 03:27 UTC | Tornado Warning | TOP |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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 air that afternoon
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.
Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z
3.3 hours before the tornado, 175 km from the path. June 8, 2022.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 799 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -19 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1684 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1456 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 2 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 16 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 234 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.5
- Supercell composite
- 7.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.7 K/km
Omaha, NE (KOAX), 12:00Z
8.7 hours after it, 175 km from the path. June 8, 2022.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -76389 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1033 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 79 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -68 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 33 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
The radar
The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:14 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 03:08 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 7 Nw Munden | Republic, KS | REPORT FROM MPING: 3-INCH TREE LIMBS BROKEN; POWER POLES BROKEN. |
| 03:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Morrowville | Washington, KS | MULTIPLE LARGE TREES DOWN. |
| 03:27 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Morrowville | Washington, KS | CORRECTS PREVIOUS TSTM WND DMG REPORT FROM MORROWVILLE. TREES UPROOTED (8-12 INCH DIAMTER) WITH 8 INCH LIMBS DOWN. |
| 03:29 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Morrowville | Washington, KS | DELAY REPORT RECEIVED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA. LARGE TREE UPROOTED. |
| 03:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 N Morrowville | Washington, KS | EMPTY GRAIN BINS WITH WALLS CAVED IN, TIN ROOFS BLOWN OFF SHED, UTILITY TRAILER ROLLED. |
| 03:31 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | Morrowville | Washington, KS | DELAYED REPORT. SEVERAL 3 INCH TREE LIMBS DOWN AND DAMAGE TO OUTBUILDINGS. |
| 03:31 UTC | TSTM WND GST 72 | 2 Sse Concordia | Cloud, KS | CORRECTS PREVIOUS NON-TSTM WND GST REPORT FROM 2 SSE CONCORDIA. ASOS STATION KCNK CONCORDIA. |
| 03:31 UTC | NON-TSTM WND GST 72 | 2 Sse Concordia | Cloud, KS | ASOS STATION KCNK CONCORDIA. |
| 03:40 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 2 Wnw Linn | Washington, KS | |
| 03:40 UTC | TSTM WND GST 77 | 2 S Washington | Washington, KS | MEASURED AT THE KANSAS STATE MESONET SITE NEAR WASHINGTON, KANSAS. |
| 03:54 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Nw Waterville | Marshall, KS | EMPTY GRAIN BIN FLIPPED OVER AND THROWN. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 7, 2022
12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 7 | 2:21 PM MDT | EF1 | Niobrara, WY | 3.5 | 225 | |||
| June 7 | 5:03 PM MDT | Unrated | Sedgwick, CO | 0.0 | 50 | |||
| June 7 | 5:09 PM MDT | Unrated | Sedgwick, CO | 0.0 | 50 | |||
| June 7 | 5:30 PM MDT | EF0 | Mora, NM | 0.2 | 10 | |||
| June 7 | 5:44 PM MDT | Unrated | Phillips, CO | 0.0 | 50 | |||
| June 7 | 6:09 PM MDT | Unrated | Phillips, CO | 0.0 | 50 | |||
| June 7 | 6:36 PM MDT | Unrated | Bent, CO | 3.4 | 25 | |||
| June 7 | 6:56 PM MDT | Unrated | Prowers, CO | 6.4 | 20 | |||
| June 7 | 8:18 PM MDT | Unrated | Baca, CO | 6.3 | 20 | |||
| June 7 | 9:42 PM CDT | EF0 | Nuckolls, NE | 9.4 | 25 | $1.0 million | ||
| June 7 | 9:27 PM MDT | Unrated | Baca, CO | 8.1 | 20 | |||
| June 7 | 11:02 PM CDT | EF1 | Marshall, KS | 2.8 | 75 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.