Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2023

Unrated tornado, Sunland, Kansas, July 10, 2023

This Unrated tornado ran 0.0 miles across Wallace County on July 10, 2023, touching down at 5:40 PM MDT 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
Unrated
Date
July 10, 2023
Touchdown
5:40 PM MDT (23:40 UTC)
Lifted
5:45 PM MDT (23:45 UTC)
On the ground
5 minutes
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
75 yards (69 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Wallace County
Touchdown point
39.045, -101.881
Lift-off point
39.045, -101.881
Record number
2307101740-01

What the Weather Service recorded

During the late afternoon into early evening scattered thunderstorms moved across Northwest Kansas. The strongest thunderstorm produced wind gusts up to 68 MPH near Ludell. Further west two colliding boundaries produced a short-lived landspout tornado north of Weskan. The largest hail for the day was reported north of Colby.

Landspout tornado reported in the northern part of the county where two boundaries were colliding. No damage was reported due to the landspout remaining over open country.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:37 UTC and running to 01:57 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
19:37 UTC01:57 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WatchGLD
23:12 UTC00:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGLD

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:48 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.

Dodge City, (KDDC), 12:00Z

11.7 hours before the tornado, 223 km from the path. July 10, 2023.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 2023-07-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 108 joules per kilogram, CIN -439, lifted condensation level 1253 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Dodge City, at 12:00Z on 2023-07-10The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 68 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 45 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
108 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-439 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1253 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
45 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
8 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
68 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
136 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
2.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Dodge City, (KDDC), 00:00Z

0.3 hours after it, 223 km from the path. July 11, 2023.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 2023-07-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2288 joules per kilogram, CIN -132, lifted condensation level 872 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Dodge City, at 00:00Z on 2023-07-11The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 39 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2288 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-132 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2628 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
872 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
39 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
167 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.5
Supercell composite
2.3
0-3 km lapse rate
5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 39 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:38 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
23:25 UTCHAIL 0.74 Se WeskanWallace, KSCaller estimated ongoing pea to dime sized hail.
23:40 UTCLANDSPOUT10 Nne WeskanWallace, KSNWS Empolyee as well as reports relayed from public and dispatch report tornado in Northern Wallace county. Location based on radar and radar data and reports suggest it was a landspout.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2023 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 10, 2023

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 103:45 PM PDTEF0Lincoln, WA0.940
July 106:16 PM CDTEF0Calcasieu Parish, LA0.130$5,000

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.