Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2008
EF0 tornado, (Czd)Cozad Muni Arpt to Darr, Nebraska, June 23, 2008
From (Czd)Cozad Muni Arpt to Darr, this EF0 tornado ran 5.1 miles across Dawson County on June 23, 2008, touching down at 12:52 AM CDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $40,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
EF2111 to 135 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.
EF3136 to 165 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
EF5over 200 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.
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
- EF0
- Date
- June 23, 2008
- Touchdown
- 12:52 AM CDT (05:52 UTC)
- Lifted
- 12:58 AM CDT (05:58 UTC)
- On the ground
- 6 minutes
- Path length
- 5.1 miles (8.1 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $40,000
- County
- Dawson County
- Touchdown point
- 40.780, -100.030
- Lift-off point
- 40.804, -99.939
- Record number
- 0806232352-01
What the Weather Service recorded
An upper level disturbance interacting with surface boundaries left from previous convection brought another round of thunderstorms to south central Nebraska. A southerly low level jet helped to sustain thunderstorms well into the overnight hours. Some thunderstorms were severe, with penny to quarter size hail reported. A brief and weak tornado occurred near Cozad. Locally heavy rain and flash flooding was also reported, with as much as 2 to 6 inches falling in portions of Adams, Hall, and Buffalo Counties.
A very weak tornado spun up quickly and moved south of Cozad for about 5 miles. Near the start of the damage path, a farmstead lost several large tree limbs. When the tornado crossed Highway 21, it hit another farmstead. Here it damaged a few of the outbuildings, including removing the roof off of a shed. It also damaged a grain bin. Other tree damage was noted near the end of the tornado's path by the Platte River.
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05:02 UTC | 06:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GID |
| 05:56 UTC | 07:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GID |
| 06:01 UTC | 07:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GID |
| 06:22 UTC | 12:15 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | GID |
| 06:58 UTC | 07:34 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GID |
| 07:13 UTC | 08:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | GID |
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 00:41 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), 00:00Z
5.9 hours before the tornado, 64 km from the path. June 24, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1839 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -110 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3427 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1349 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 38 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 9 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 53 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 200 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.5
- Supercell composite
- 9.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.4 K/km
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 12:00Z
6.1 hours after it, 64 km from the path. June 24, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 86 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -182 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 28 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1579 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 40 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 95 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.3 K/km
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 04:30 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Maywood | Frontier, NE | |
| 05:58 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 S Cozad | Dawson, NE | CONSIDERABLE OUTBUILDING AND GRAIN BIN DAMAGE ON FARMSTEAD ALONG HIGHWAY 21...INCLUDING BARN ROOF BLOWN OFF. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR DATA. |
| 05:58 UTC | TORNADO | 6 Ssw Cozad | Dawson, NE | EF-0 TORNADO WITH 5 MILE PATH LENGTH BEGAN 6 MILES SOUTH-SOUTHWEST OF COZAD AND ENDED 5 MILES SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF COZAD. MOST DAMAGE TOOK PLACE AT A FARM 5 MILES SOUTH OF COZAD ALONG HIGHWAY 21...INCLUDING A SHED ROOF BLO |
| 06:43 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Miller | Buffalo, NE |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 23, 2008
5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.