EF1 tornado, Circleville to Holton, Kansas, May 18, 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 mphthis tornado

   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, as surveyed

EF1, preliminary

Date

May 18, 2026

Touchdown

7:16 PM CDT (00:16 UTC)

Lifted

7:26 PM CDT (00:26 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

8.2 miles (13.2 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Jackson County

Touchdown point

39.461, -95.826

Lift-off point

39.531, -95.702

Highest wind the damage implies

100 mph

Surveyed by

NWS TOP

Survey last edited

May 22, 2026

Record number

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

Outbuilding and barn destroyed. Several large branches broken along the path. Windows blown out of south facing porch.

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

14 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 100 mph.

• Rotten silver maple trunk snapped entire tree snapped low end based on condition
• Bradford pear uprooted others damaged along driveway too. Home is ok
• Outbuilding and barn structure destroyed old silo appears to have collapsed to the north but should not have caused collateral damage condition of barn shows unreinforced cinder blocks stacked as wall that collapsed
• Large branches snapped could have been doe to collapse of barn

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

Supercell thunderstorms developed ahead of a dryline and near a warm front during the afternoon and evening hours of May 18. The storms produced 7 documented tornadoes and eventually evolved into a line of storms that produced damaging winds of 60-80 mph across northeast and east central Kansas. Some areas also received 2-5 inches of rain just two to three hours causing flash flooding in several areas including the city of Manhattan.

Storm survey revealed a narrow tornado track formed a few miles west of Holton and moved northeast producing damage mainly to tree limbs. Structural damage was noted near the initial area of the track where windows were broken out of a home and older barns were destroyed.

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 17:50 UTC and running to 01:00 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 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.

The Topeka radar (KTWX), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:14 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

19 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.