EF0 tornado, Harper, Kansas, June 17, 2025

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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. 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

EF0

Date

June 17, 2025

Touchdown

4:25 PM CDT (21:25 UTC)

Lifted

4:28 PM CDT (21:28 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Harper County

Touchdown point

37.239, -98.040

Lift-off point

37.239, -98.039

Record number

2506171525-01

During the early morning hours of Tuesday June 17th, a line of storms developed into a bow echo as it progressed south. This line of storms produced extremely strong winds as it tracked south, with Hutchinson reporting an 89 mph gust and the Wichita Airport seeing a 102 mph gust! This was the strongest wind gust ever reported at the Wichita Airport.||These extreme winds caused extensive damage with Sedgwick County receiving around 250 reports of power lines being down which resulted in around 85,000 residents with out power. The stronger wind gusts around 50 to 60 mph lasted for around an hour. ||Additional storms developed throughout the day producing wind gusts of 60 to 80 mph, near four inch hail in Arkansas City and a brief tornado in Harper County. Tree damage was extensive throughout much of Wichita and surrounding areas especially with multiple rounds of strong winds. The hail in Arkansas City was baseball to softball sized which led to damage of vehicles, homes and businesses across town.

A brief tornado was reported by the emergency manager which pulled two stop signs out of the ground, and an ad bulletin sign was snapped off at the post.

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 tornado watch, issued at 20:47 UTC and running to 02:40 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:23 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 2025 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.