Unrated tornado, Cullison to Preston, Kansas, May 18, 2025

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

May 18, 2025

Touchdown

11:09 PM CDT (04:09 UTC)

Lifted

11:11 PM CDT (04:11 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Pratt County

Touchdown point

37.719, -98.744

Lift-off point

37.723, -98.738

Record number

2505182209-01

32 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DDC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 160 mph.

• Pivot flipped and separated
• Multiple full crude oil tanks removed and tossed in the air for several hundred yards to the northeast
• Pivot flipped and separated into multiple pieces
• A half mile of broken wood electrical poles

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

A regional outbreak of tornadoes occurred across portions|of western into south-central Kansas during the afternoon to|evening hours of Sunday 18 May 2025. The first couple of tornadic|supercells occurred near Scott City KS in Scott County during the|late afternoon and progressed northward with both storms generating|EF2 tornadoes and a lone brief EFU tornado. A second tornadic|supercell developed near Dodge City KS in the early evening and|progressed northeast with an EFO tornado occurring near Kinsley KS|in Edwards County and an EF2 tornado near Garfield KS in Pawnee County.|A final long-duration tornadic supercell then formed in the mid|evening hours over Comanche County KS and commenced moving northeast|toward Greensburg KS in Kiowa County, Iuka KS in Pratt County,|north of Preston KS in Pratt County and finally across Stafford|and Reno Counties. This storm generated five EF3 tornadoes along with|several smaller satellite tornadoes. The final count for this day|was 13 tornadoes just within the NWS Dodge City Warning area.

Upon reported possible tornado damage, a NWS storm survey determined there was a tornado that shredded trees and down numerous powerlines. There was also complete destruction of a small metal building.

A storm chaser captured a small satellite tornado off of the large Pratt tornado with pictures and video. No damage was reported or found.

Public and storm chasers reported a tornado. A survey determined that a swath of damage was due to the tornado. Some damage included striped trees, broken power poles, a destroyed metal building, and large roof damage to a residential building. The tornado began in Pratt county before moving into Stafford county and then continued into ICT's CWA.

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

17 minutes of warning. NWS DDC issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:52 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:42 UTC and running to 05:00 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 01:00 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.

Pratt (PTT), 2 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Dodge City radar (KDDC), 108 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:11 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

42 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.