Tornadoes · United States · Kansas · 2026
EF0 tornado, Allen to Admire, Kansas, April 23, 2026
From Allen to Admire, this EF0 tornado ran 1.0 miles across Lyon County on April 23, 2026, touching down at 7:08 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
Preliminary. This is NWS TOP's damage survey, filed in the Damage Assessment Toolkit. The rating, the path and the casualties are the survey's and can change while it is revised. The Storm Prediction Center compiles the official record of 2026 from these surveys and publishes it in the spring of 2027; this page moves to that tornado's permanent address when it does.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The survey
- Rating, as surveyed
- EF0, preliminary
- Date
- April 23, 2026
- Touchdown
- 7:08 PM CDT (00:08 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:14 PM CDT (00:14 UTC)
- On the ground
- 6 minutes
- Path length
- 1.0 miles (1.6 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Lyon County
- Touchdown point
- 38.595, -96.157
- Lift-off point
- 38.597, -96.139
- Highest wind the damage implies
- 85 mph
- Surveyed by
- NWS TOP
- Survey last edited
- April 24, 2026
- Record number
- None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.
What the survey found
Confirmed with video evidence.
Written by NWS TOP in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.
The damage survey
13 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TOP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.
- Detached garage destroyed debris tossed southwest into cabin to the south
- Detached garage destroyed debris tossed east southeast into cabin to the southeast
- Another detached garage destroyed debris tossed east. Sill plate had bolts some without nuts or washers.
- Appears the tree was lifted out of the ground and fell into cabin
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
Severe t-storms developed during the late afternoon into the evening of April 23rd. Large hail, damaging winds and a few tornadoes were documented. The strongest tornado damaged structures at lake kahola near the Morris and Chase County line. The other tornadoes were rated EF0 or EFU due to lack of documented damage.
A member of the public shared a video that appears to show a small tornado in a field. No damage was reported and the tornado appeared to last less than one minute.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
44 minutes of warning. NWS TOP issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:24 UTC, 44 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:05 UTC and running to 02:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:05 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | TOP |
| 22:57 UTC | 23:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TOP |
| 23:24 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | TOP |
| 00:01 UTC | 00:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TOP |
| 00:05 UTC | 00:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | TOP |
| 00:17 UTC | 00:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TOP |
| 00:26 UTC | 00:41 UTC | Tornado Warning | TOP |
| 00:43 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | TOP |
| 00:55 UTC | 01:17 UTC | Tornado Warning | TOP |
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 forecast that day
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 19:45 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 air that afternoon
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.
Topeka, KS (KTOP), 00:00Z
0.1 hours before the tornado, 63 km from the path. April 24, 2026.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1551 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -24 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1352 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1022 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 28 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 203 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 228 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.3
- Supercell composite
- 6.5
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.3 K/km
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:26 UTC | TORNADO | 1 W Dunlap | Morris, KS | Confirmed by photo on social media. |
| 23:29 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Sw Dunlap | Morris, KS | Time estimated by radar. Delayed report from EM on at least 3 homes damaged near Lake Kahola from a tornado. |
| 23:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Sw Dunlap | Morris, KS | Roof blown off of home near Kahola Lake. |
| 23:54 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 7 Wsw Topeka | Shawnee, KS | dime size hail. |
| 23:55 UTC | HAIL 1.25 | 4 W Topeka | Shawnee, KS | Report from mPING: Half Dollar (1.25 in.). Time estimated from radar data. |
| 00:06 UTC | TORNADO | 6 S Allen | Lyon, KS | Report of tornado south of Admire on road L and 280. Relayed by Emergency Manager. Time Estimated radar. |
| 00:24 UTC | HAIL 1 | 9 Ne Matfield Green | Chase, KS | Report from mPING: Quarter (1.00 in.). |
| 00:40 UTC | TSTM WND GST 59 | 2 Ese Pauline | Shawnee, KS | KFOE Topeka Regional Airport. |
| 01:15 UTC | HAIL 1 | 2 Sw Madison | Greenwood, KS | Relayed via Eureka fire. |
| 01:43 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 5 Nne Gridley | Coffey, KS | Damage to an outbuilding. |
| 01:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Ssw Burlington | Coffey, KS | Building lost its roof. Scattered tree damage elsewhere in Burlington. Time estimated from radar data. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2026 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 23, 2026
19 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 23 | 1:46 PM CDT | EF1 | Harrison, IA | 2.9 | 500 | |||
| April 23 | 4:52 PM CDT | Unrated | Audubon, IA | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| April 23 | 5:34 PM CDT | Unrated | Fremont, IA | 0.5 | 20 | |||
| April 23 | 5:34 PM CDT | EF0 | Fremont, IA | 1.8 | 80 | |||
| April 23 | 6:03 PM CDT | EF0 | Wabaunsee, KS | 3.3 | 30 | |||
| April 23 | 6:04 PM CDT | EF0 | Wabaunsee, KS | 0.5 | 0 | |||
| April 23 | 6:17 PM CDT | EF0 | Page, IA | 2.1 | 20 | |||
| April 23 | 6:26 PM CDT | EF1 | Morris, KS | 0.9 | 30 | |||
| April 23 | 7:00 PM CDT | EF1 | Kay, OK | 10.4 | 400 | |||
| April 23 | 7:07 PM CDT | EF0 | Kay, OK | 0.4 | 0 | |||
| April 23 | 7:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Kay, OK | 2.9 | 50 | |||
| April 23 | 7:20 PM CDT | EF0 | Madison, IA | 1.4 | 20 | |||
| April 23 | 7:58 PM CDT | EF1 | Gentry, MO | 4.3 | 100 | |||
| April 23 | 8:11 PM CDT | EF4 | Garfield, OK | 9.5 | 600 | 1 | ||
| April 23 | 8:42 PM CDT | EF1 | Decatur, IA | 2.2 | 150 | |||
| April 23 | 8:57 PM CDT | EF0 | Clay, MO | 1.7 | 75 | |||
| April 23 | 9:11 PM CDT | EF0 | Clay, MO | 1.5 | 50 | |||
| April 23 | 9:11 PM CDT | EF0 | Clay, MO | 1.1 | 100 | |||
| April 23 | 12:14 AM CDT | EF1 | Jasper, MO | 1.0 | 200 |
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.
Sources
NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.