Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2002

F0 tornado, St Paul, Nebraska, May 26, 2002

This F0 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Howard County on May 26, 2002, touching down at 6:58 PM CDT and reaching 25 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 26, 2002
Touchdown
6:58 PM CDT (23:58 UTC)
Path length
0.5 miles (0.8 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Howard County
Touchdown point
41.220, -98.550
Lift-off point
41.220, -98.530
Record number
722

What the Weather Service recorded

Scattered thunderstorms erupted across south-central Nebraska. The thunderstorms started out north of Grand Island and spread south to the Nebraska/Kansas border. Brief tornados occurred west of Saint Paul, east of Naponee and west of Wilsonville. These were very short lived and caused no damage. The tornado near Wilsonville was reported by a university chase team. Very strong winds developed northwest of Grand Island and roared at nearly 80 mph through the village of Cairo. Windows were blown out of several cars and roofs were blown off a couple of businesses. Hail up to 4 inches in diameter smashed through Franklin and caused extensive roof and siding damage.

Brief tornado in open field

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

The warnings

11 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:47 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:31 UTC00:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningGID
23:47 UTC00:15 UTCTornado WarningGID

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 20:21 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.

N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 12:00Z

12.0 hours before the tornado, 173 km from the path. May 26, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 12:00Z on 2002-05-26Temperature 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 -560, lifted condensation level 1662 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, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 12:00Z on 2002-05-26The 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 184 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 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
-560 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1662 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
184 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
160 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 00:00Z

0.0 hours before the tornado, 173 km from the path. May 27, 2002.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 00:00Z on 2002-05-27Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1192 joules per kilogram, CIN -125, lifted condensation level 1891 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, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 00:00Z on 2002-05-27The 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 112 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 44 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
1192 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-125 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3244 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1891 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
44 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
112 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
128 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
3.1
0-3 km lapse rate
7.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Grand Island (GRI), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
22:53 UTC7561160° 15 kt1010.2
23:37 UTC73.460.8160° 13 kt1009.8VCTS
23:53 UTC7361160° 12 kt1009.8
00:14 UTC69.859290° 34 kt421013.2VCTS -RA SQ
00:22 UTC57.255.4310° 16 kt421013.2+TSRA BR
00:25 UTC57.255.4320° 17 kt331012.9+TSRA BR
00:41 UTC5955.4340° 21 kt271011.5+TSRA BR
00:53 UTC5956350° 13 kt281011.2-TSRA BR
01:26 UTC5955.4120° 9 kt1011.2
01:53 UTC5956140° 12 kt1011.9

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

The radar

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 100 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:56 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 2002 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 26, 2002

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 263:55 PM CDTF0Trempealeau, WI0.120
May 266:40 PM CDTF0Frontier, NE0.520
May 267:05 PM CDTF0Frontier, NE0.520
May 267:06 PM CDTF0Red Willow, NE4.5100
May 267:15 PM CDTF0Franklin, NE1.050
May 267:20 PM CDTF0Pecos, TX0.150
May 267:30 PM CDTF0Red Willow, NE6.0100
May 267:53 PM CDTF0Barton, KS1.0110
May 267:55 PM CDTF0Barton, KS0.5110
May 267:59 PM CDTF0Russell, KS1.0110
May 269:17 PM CDTF0Nolan, TX0.220
May 2610:48 PM CDTF0Nolan, TX0.330

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.