Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2004

F0 tornado, Lemoyne, Nebraska, June 10, 2004

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Keith County on June 10, 2004, touching down at 3:40 PM MDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 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.

  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
June 10, 2004
Touchdown
3:40 PM MDT (21:40 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Keith County
Touchdown point
41.370, -101.930
Lift-off point
41.370, -101.930
Record number
1276

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado briefly touched down over the west end of Lake McConaughy. As the tornado was lifting, it broke off trees along the north bank of the lake and then lifted off a 2nd story porch roof, which was poorly attached to the home. The porch roof then helped pull off a quarter of the roof on the home which was in the Marina Landing area.

Storm chasers reported a brief tornado touchdown in open rangeland.

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

The warnings

33 minutes of warning. NWS LBF issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:07 UTC, 33 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:07 UTC21:45 UTCTornado WarningLBF
21:45 UTC22:15 UTCTornado WarningLBF
22:34 UTC23:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLBF
22:55 UTC23:45 UTCTornado WarningLBF

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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:13 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

9.7 hours before the tornado, 114 km from the path. June 10, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 12:00Z on 2004-06-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 564 joules per kilogram, CIN -67, lifted condensation level 499 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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 2004-06-10The 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 85 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 29 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
564 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-67 J/kg
Surface CAPE
145 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
499 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
85 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
235 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

2.3 hours after it, 114 km from the path. June 11, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 00:00Z on 2004-06-11Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2590 joules per kilogram, CIN -5, lifted condensation level 1541 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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 2004-06-11The 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 133 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 44 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
2590 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-5 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3498 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1541 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
44 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
133 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
179 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.0
Supercell composite
12.3
0-3 km lapse rate
8.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The North Platte radar (KLNX), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:42 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 2004 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 10, 2004

19 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 102:00 PM CDTF0Champaign, IL0.710
June 102:20 PM CDTF0Champaign, IL0.510
June 102:38 PM CDTF1Champaign, IL3.030$10,000
June 102:57 PM CDTF0Vermilion, IL3.510
June 102:26 PM MDTF0Box Butte, NE0.130
June 102:35 PM MDTF0Sedgwick, CO0.550
June 102:41 PM MDTF1Deuel, NE10.02202$70,000
June 103:25 PM MDTF0Sheridan, WY3.6100
June 104:05 PM MDTF0Keith, NE0.520
June 104:15 PM MDTF0Arthur, NE0.620$30,000
June 105:28 PM CDTF1Bureau, IL0.3125$10,000
June 105:30 PM CDTF1Bureau, IL0.3125$10,000
June 104:53 PM MDTF1Stanley, SD1.0400
June 105:55 PM CDTF0Woodford, IL0.110
June 105:00 PM MDTF0Arthur, NE0.220
June 106:55 PM CDTF0Lincoln, NE0.120
June 107:32 PM CDTF0Thomas, KS0.350
June 109:49 PM CDTF1Webster, NE12.0300$500,000
June 1011:05 PM CDTF0Howard, NE1.0100$40,000

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.