Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 1986
F2 tornado, Custer County, Nebraska, April 3, 1986
This F2 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Custer County on April 3, 1986, touching down at 5:30 PM CST and reaching 40 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 to $500,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 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.
F3158 to 206 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 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 record
- Rating
- F2
- Date
- April 3, 1986
- Touchdown
- 5:30 PM CST (23:30 UTC)
- Path length
- 1.5 miles (2.4 km)
- Path width
- 40 yards (37 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $50,000 to $500,000
- County
- Custer County
- Touchdown point
- 41.150, -99.900
- Lift-off point
- 41.150, -99.900
- Record number
- 111
The warnings
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:34 UTC | 23:50 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
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 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.
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 12:00Z
11.5 hours before the tornado, 59 km from the path. April 3, 1986.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -8698 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 557 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 44 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 105 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 189 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 00:00Z
0.5 hours after it, 59 km from the path. April 4, 1986.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 132 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -38 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 85 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 593 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 90 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 372 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 543 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.7 K/km
The surface observations
Cozad (CZD), 32 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:00 UTC | 63 | 55 | 90° 19 kt | 1002 | ||
| 23:00 UTC | 60 | 55 | 90° 13 kt | 1002.7 | ||
| 00:00 UTC | 60 | 55 | 90° 10 kt | 1002.7 | ||
| 01:00 UTC | 55 | 50 | 130° 20 kt | 1004.1 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1986 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 3, 1986
7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 3 | 4:10 PM CST | F1 | Lincoln, NE | 2.0 | 50 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| April 3 | 4:42 PM CST | F0 | Lincoln, NE | 0.1 | 17 | under $50 | ||
| April 3 | 5:10 PM CST | F1 | Dawson, NE | 1.0 | 40 | 1 | $50,000 to $500,000 | |
| April 3 | 5:10 PM CST | F1 | Dawson, NE | 0.5 | 40 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| April 3 | 5:53 PM CST | F0 | Lincoln, NE | 0.1 | 13 | |||
| April 3 | 6:03 PM CST | F0 | York, NE | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| April 3 | 2:30 PM HST | F0 | Hawaii, HI | 0.2 | 50 | $500 to $5,000 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.