Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 1998

F2 tornado, Coleridge to Hartington, Nebraska, May 28, 1998

From Coleridge to Hartington, this F2 tornado ran 8.0 miles across Cedar County on May 28, 1998, touching down at 6:40 PM CDT and reaching 250 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 1.

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 mph

    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 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. 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
F2
Date
May 28, 1998
Touchdown
6:40 PM CDT (23:40 UTC)
Path length
8.0 miles (12.9 km)
Path width
250 yards (229 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
1
County
Cedar County
Touchdown point
42.550, -97.130
Lift-off point
42.550, -97.020
Record number
282

What the Weather Service recorded

Three farms damaged. Eight to ten power poles downed 8 -10 miles east southeast of Hartington. Injury occurred about 9 miles east of Hartington southeast of the Highway 84/57 interchange.

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

The warnings

6 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:34 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:05 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:14 UTC23:50 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOAX
23:34 UTC00:05 UTCTornado WarningOAX

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 10:50 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.

Omaha, NE (KOAX), 12:00Z

11.7 hours before the tornado, 149 km from the path. May 28, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 1998-05-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1669 joules per kilogram, CIN -237, lifted condensation level 991 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, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 1998-05-28The 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 242 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
1669 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-237 J/kg
Surface CAPE
58 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
991 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
242 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
226 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z

0.3 hours after it, 149 km from the path. May 29, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 1998-05-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2835 joules per kilogram, CIN -9, lifted condensation level 1954 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, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 1998-05-29The 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 64 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 39 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
2835 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-9 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3832 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1954 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
64 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
115 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
7.5
0-3 km lapse rate
7.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Sioux Falls radar (KFSD), 119 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:39 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 1998 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 28, 1998

14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 283:25 PM CDTF0Buena Vista, IA1.050
May 283:26 PM CDTF0Buena Vista, IA0.150
May 283:40 PM CDTF0Pocahontas, IA0.230
May 286:58 PM CDTF0Dixon, NE0.150
May 287:05 PM CDTF0Linn, IA0.130
May 287:10 PM CDTF0Dixon, NE8.0100
May 287:12 PM CDTF0Linn, IA0.130
May 287:32 PM CDTF0Dubuque, IA0.130
May 288:05 PM CDTF0Woodbury, IA0.150
May 288:23 PM CDTF0Stephenson, IL0.130
May 288:46 PM CDTF0Stephenson, IL0.130$1,000
May 288:56 PM CDTF0Calhoun, IA0.330
May 289:20 PM CDTF0Crawford, IA0.130
May 2810:36 PM CDTF0Carroll, IA0.230

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.