EF2 tornado, Caldwell to Milan, Kansas, March 5, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF2, preliminary

Date

March 5, 2026

Touchdown

11:34 PM CST (05:34 UTC)

Lifted

11:37 PM CST (05:37 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

120 yards (110 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Sumner County

Touchdown point

37.066, -97.775

Lift-off point

37.075, -97.761

Highest wind the damage implies

135 mph

Surveyed by

NWS ICT

The office's name for it

Sumner 1

Survey last edited

May 21, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

Damage occurred to the top of a tank battery, overturned a pumpjack, snapped a few power poles and cedar trees along with damage to multiple outbuildings

Written by NWS ICT in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

16 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ICT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 135 mph.

• Outbuilding damaged with walls and roof collapsed. Remnants are scattered to north and northwest. Nearby outbuilding had door dented in.
• Barbed wire fence pulled with debris from the shed located nearby.
• One snapped wooden pole. Debris is strewn into nearby fields. There are some wires down but one remained connected to the nearby poles.
• Around 50 or so large round hay bales strewn across Eden Road on either side of it.

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

During the late evening of Thursday March 5th, a supercell thunderstorm tracked out of northern Oklahoma and into southern Kansas. As the storm crossed into Kansas, the rotation strengthened and eventually produced a couple of tornadoes over western Sumner County. One tornado damaged a few farm outbuildings, multiple trees and overturned a pumpjack. It was rated an EF-2. The other tornado damaged farm outbuildings and utility poles. Thankfully there were no injuries or fatalities. The storm produced damaging straightline winds as well. ||Additional storms developed across central Kansas with up to nickel to quarter sized hail reported. There were storms with winds around 60 mph as well including one that damaged a cedar tree.

A storm survey found a tornado led to damage occurring to the top of a tank battery, an overturned pumpjack, a few snapped power poles and cedar trees. There were additional to damage to multiple outbuildings.

An occluded tornado produced damage to a couple of outbuildings, and it moved several round hay bales. They were strewn on either side of the road. A couple small headstones in the cemetery were knocked over.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS ICT issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:27 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:15 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:32 UTC and running to 09:52 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:35 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 2026 tornado in KansasEvery tornado in Kansas since 1950Warnings in force in Kansas nowThe forecast where you are

6 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

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.

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.