Unrated tornado, Achilles, Kansas, July 6, 2024

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

July 6, 2024

Touchdown

2:02 PM CDT (19:02 UTC)

Lifted

2:08 PM CDT (19:08 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

3.3 miles (5.3 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Rawlins County

Touchdown point

39.733, -100.949

Lift-off point

39.746, -100.889

Record number

2407061302-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GLD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU.

• Possible start point via radar. Multiple reports of a tornado southeast of Atwood. No damage was reported.
• Possible end point via radar. Multiple reports of a tornado southeast of Atwood. No damage was reported.

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

During the afternoon hours, scattered storms developed along the dryline as it moved over Northwest Kansas. One supercell produced an EF-Unknown tornado southeast of Atwood in Rawlins County The Rawlins County Storm and numerous others throughout the remainder of the afternoon produced pea to ping pong ball sized hail across Rawlins, Decatur, Thomas, Sheridan, Logan, and Gove counties. The largest hail fell near the town of Herndon in Rawlins County. The storms also produced damaging wind gusts of 58 to estimated 90 mph with damage to trees and a few overturned semi trucks across Logan, Gove, and Thomas counties.

Multiple reports from law enforcement and the public of a tornado southeast of Atwood. No damage was reported along the path as it likely stayed in open fields.

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

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 17:27 UTC and running to 21:45 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. The outlook in force was issued at 16:34 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.

Atwood (ADT), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 79 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:02 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 2024 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.