EF2 tornado, Waldron to Attica, Kansas, May 25, 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 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

May 25, 2024

Touchdown

7:29 PM CDT (00:29 UTC)

Lifted

7:36 PM CDT (00:36 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

6.7 miles (10.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Harper County

Touchdown point

37.081, -98.142

Lift-off point

37.158, -98.198

Record number

2405251829-01

11 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DDC and NWS ICT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Estimated starting point via radar.
• Estimated end point based on radar data.

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

Rich low level moisture rapidly lifted north across the Plains on Saturday May 25th with storms initially developing along a developing dryline across western Oklahoma. One particular storm gained strength as it tracked north of the Oklahoma/Kansas border. This supercell thunderstorm produced a brief tornado in Barber County before tracking east and producing an EF-2 tornado west of Anthony. What made this tornado unique was that it did not form from the main mesocyclone associated with the supercell, but rather from the supercells interaction with one of the storms lifting due north out of Oklahoma.||The tornado threat was short-lived though as storms lifting north out of northern Oklahoma merged with the supercell which transitioned the threat to damaging winds. This cluster of storms produced 60 to 75 mph winds as it tracked across Wichita which caused widespread tree damage and widespread power outages.||Around midnight additional storms developed over southern Cowley County and rapidly starting rotating which required a tornado warning as it tracked toward the Kansas/Oklahoma border. This storm went on to produce just shy of baseball size hail in Tyro and 80 mph winds in Caney.

The tornado tracked northwest and damaged a farmstead west of Anthony. What made this tornado unique was that it did not form from the main mesocyclone associated with the supercell, but rather from the supercell's interaction with one of the storms lifting due north out of Oklahoma. EF-2 damage was found at a farm about 8 miles west of Anthony where large sections of a roof structure were removed. A couple tree trunks were snapped with another one uprooted. One outbuilding was totally destroyed.

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS ICT issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:15 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:31 UTC and running to 03:14 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:09 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 Vance AFB radar (KVNX), 42 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:29 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

19 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.