Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 1990

F0 tornado, Sheridan County, Nebraska, July 20, 1990

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Sheridan County on July 20, 1990, touching down at 1:45 PM MDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 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. 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.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
July 20, 1990
Touchdown
1:45 PM MDT (19:45 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Sheridan County
Touchdown point
42.800, -102.350
Record number
905

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)ExpiredProductOffice
19:51 UTC20:30 UTCTornado WarningCYS

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:15 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.

Rapid City, SD (KRAP), 12:00Z

7.8 hours before the tornado, 148 km from the path. July 20, 1990.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Rapid City, SD at 12:00Z on 1990-07-20Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 67 joules per kilogram, CIN -76, lifted condensation level 960 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Rapid City, SD at 12:00Z on 1990-07-20The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -42 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
67 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-76 J/kg
Surface CAPE
94 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
960 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-42 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-68 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Rapid City, SD (KRAP), 00:00Z

4.2 hours after it, 148 km from the path. July 21, 1990.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Rapid City, SD at 00:00Z on 1990-07-21Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 39 joules per kilogram, CIN -4, lifted condensation level 649 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Rapid City, SD at 00:00Z on 1990-07-21The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 18 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 23 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
39 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-4 J/kg
Surface CAPE
131 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
649 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
18 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
51 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1990 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 20, 1990

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 201:50 PM MDTF0Conejos, CO1.513$5,000 to $50,000
July 202:05 PM MDTF0El Paso, CO4.023
July 203:05 PM MDTF0El Paso, CO1.013
July 203:05 PM MDTF0El Paso, CO0.113
July 204:05 PM MDTF0El Paso, CO0.110

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.