EF1 tornado, Zarah to Mission Hills, Kansas, May 19, 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 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

May 19, 2024

Touchdown

10:39 PM CDT (03:39 UTC)

Lifted

10:45 PM CDT (03:45 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Johnson County

Touchdown point

38.990, -94.660

Lift-off point

39.020, -94.630

Record number

2405192139-01

104 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS EAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 104 mph.

• Rated EF-0 given the fourth photo reveals the trunk was rotting on the inside. -JTK
• Lofted debris from start of track 0.37miles away
• Section of roof and decking missing and tossed to the north about 300ft.
• Poles snapped ; 2 large trees uprooted and one fell on house

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

During the late evening hours of May 19th, a squall line brought severe wind gusts and a few tornadoes to portions of Johnson and Wyandotte Counties.

Survey confirmed an EF-1 tornado in NW Johnson County KS. Most notable damage was to school concession stand and administrative building near the track and football field. Debris from this area was carried a few neighborhoods away. In one of the neighborhoods, there was roof damage to two homes with loss of roof decking on the corner of one home. Most of the damage was to trees with large trunks snapped higher up in the tree, some trees were uprooted though they were evergreens with shallow root systems or the tree was beginning to rot at the base. Debris was in an overall convergent pattern.

Preliminary results of a NWS Damage Survey have confirmed an EF-1 Tornado occurred Sunday Night, May 19th, 2024 in northeastern Johnson County Kansas. Much of the path was EF-0 Damage, with a pocket of EF-1 Damage with max winds around 95 MPH. The tornado began near the western edge of Prairie Village Kansas, near 79th and Lamar Ave around 10:39 PM CDT. It continued northeast through Prairie Village toward Fairway KS and ending around 10:45 PM CDT on the western edge of Mission Hills.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 23:25 UTC and running to 05:50 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 01:13 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 Pleasant Hill radar (KEAX), 39 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:39 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

31 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.