EF2 tornado, Angelus, 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 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 18, 2025

Touchdown

7:08 PM CDT (00:08 UTC)

Lifted

7:11 PM CDT (00:11 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Sheridan County

Touchdown point

39.214, -100.513

Lift-off point

39.211, -100.518

Record number

2505181808-01

68 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. The highest wind the damage implies is 143 mph.

• Most of the damage occurred on the southwestern sides of the buildings. A shed and house had roof and siding damage. Wooden fencing was also damaged.
• Roof lifted off of barn. West wall and parts of south wall pushed in including one wall that was anchored with a bolt. The foundation of the barn was pushed away from there and are two boards from the barn driven in the ground to the north-northeast. Furrow in ground to NNE 6-10” wide with one board impaled 5”.
• Two green carts originally sitting in roughly the same spot away from the road one was pushed at least 10 feet from its original spot with the jack in the ground. The other was pushed 3 1/2 feet with the jack in the ground.
• Large propane tank four feet in height from side was taken off cinderblock base and rolled up an embankment into wheatfield roughly 30-40 yards away from its base. Tank was hooked up when the tank rolled away.

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

Numerous thunderstorms developed across the area leading to multiple hail reports, with the largest being 2 inches in diameter located in Wheeler and 5 S of St. Francis. Severe wind gusts were also reported as well, with the strongest being 63 mph 9 NNW of McDonald. Multiple tornadoes also occurred as well in Sherman, Cheyenne, and Gove counties. The town of Grinnell was directly hit by a strong tornado.

Continuation of the Gove County tornado that impacted Grinnell.

The same supercell which produced Grinnell tornado produced another EF3 tornado in Sheridan County, which led to damage to portions of a homestead. The worst damage was broken bolts and metal brackets of a metal frame that was bolted into concrete. The tornado also removed the roof from a barn nearby, as well as leveling a cinderblock garage and removing/destroying wooden and metal grain bins. The tornado started just northwest of CR 110 S and 40W based on Sentinel satellite data, crossed CR 90 S and 80 S, then lifted just northwest of County Road 406 and CR 20 W intersection based on the same Sentinel data as well.

Based on damage and satellite footage, a second corridor of damage occurred northwest of the homestead. The damage tracks of the two tornadoes merge at the end point of this tornado. This tornado twisted a pivot, broke several power poles, and removed tree tops from the west edge of the windbreak.

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

30 minutes of warning. NWS GLD issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:38 UTC, 30 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:00 UTC and running to 02:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:05 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.

Oakley (OEL), 29 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 103 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:10 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.