EF0 tornado, Shelton, Nebraska, June 15, 2009

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. 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.

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

June 15, 2009

Touchdown

8:37 PM CDT (01:37 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Buffalo County

Touchdown point

40.737, -98.730

Lift-off point

40.737, -98.730

Record number

0906151937-01

A surface warm front draped across the region was the focus for afternoon thunderstorm development as an upper level disturbance moved through. Breaks in the clouds during the afternoon allowed for instability to quickly increase, and along with the already present deep layer shear, some thunderstorms became severe, dropping hail from the size of nickels up to tennis balls. As the low level jet began to increase during the evening, this enhanced low level shear, aiding in the development of a brief, weak tornado in Adams County near the town of Assumption. This EF0 tornado overturned a couple of pivots, and caused some damage to crops and to one farmstead, where minor tree and outbuilding damage was reported. Another tornado touchdown was reported south of Shelton, but was very brief and caused no damage.

Brief touchdown was reported 3 miles south of Shelton.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:31 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:44 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:34 UTC and running to 03:53 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:09 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 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.

Kearney Municipal (EAR), 23 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 52 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:37 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2009 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

30 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.