Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 1996

F0 tornado, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, May 8, 1996

This F0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Scotts Bluff County on May 8, 1996, touching down at 3:00 PM MDT and reaching 50 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
May 8, 1996
Touchdown
3:00 PM MDT (21:00 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Scotts Bluff County
Touchdown point
41.970, -103.530
Lift-off point
41.970, -103.520
Record number
174

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado briefly touched down in an open field nine miles northeast of Scottsbluff.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 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.

Denver, CO (KDNR), 12:00Z

9.0 hours before the tornado, 235 km from the path. May 8, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Denver, CO at 12:00Z on 1996-05-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 4 joules per kilogram, CIN -322, lifted condensation level 1323 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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, Denver, CO at 12:00Z on 1996-05-08The 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 -32 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 43 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
4 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-322 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1323 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
43 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-32 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
237 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Denver, CO (KDNR), 00:00Z

3.0 hours after it, 235 km from the path. May 9, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Denver, CO at 00:00Z on 1996-05-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1808 joules per kilogram, CIN -25, lifted condensation level 2066 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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, Denver, CO at 00:00Z on 1996-05-09The 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 44 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 65 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
1808 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-25 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1781 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2066 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
65 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
44 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
159 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
7.0
0-3 km lapse rate
8.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Scottsbluff (BFF), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
19:00 UTC71430° 0 kt1012.2
20:00 UTC74420° 0 kt1011.2
21:00 UTC75550° 0 kt1010.5
22:00 UTC7444350° 7 kt1011.2TSRA
22:30 UTC330° 17 kt1012.9+TSRA -RA FZFG
22:37 UTC340° 15 kt1012.5-RA

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Cheyenne radar (KCYS), 140 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:02 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 8, 1996

17 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 82:01 PM CDTF0Jasper, IL15.840
May 82:38 PM ESTF1Clay, IN4.5400$250,000
May 83:20 PM ESTF1Greene, IN0.5200$10,000
May 83:55 PM ESTF2Jackson, IN5.5200$1.3 million
May 84:00 PM ESTF1Brown, IN2.075$50,000
May 84:15 PM ESTF0Decatur, IN0.775$40,000
May 86:00 PM EDTF1Gallatin, KY2.01007$10,000
May 86:46 PM EDTF0Clermont, OH1.0100$30,000
May 87:15 PM EDTF2Pendleton, KY2.02002$70,000
May 87:45 PM EDTF0Scioto, OH0.550$10,000
May 88:10 PM EDTF0Clark, OH1.0100$10,000
May 88:44 PM CDTF2Gage, NE9.588015$12 million
May 89:07 PM CDTF1Thayer, NE7.0150$2.0 million
May 89:30 PM CDTF1Jefferson, NE1.5100$250,000
May 810:00 PM CDTF1Jefferson, NE2.5100$350,000
May 810:00 PM CDTF0Pratt, KS0.550
May 811:25 PM CDTF1Atchison, MO5.0100$70,000

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.