Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2010
EF0 tornado, Alliance, Nebraska, June 7, 2010
This EF0 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Box Butte County on June 7, 2010, touching down at 7:24 PM MDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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 7, 2010
- Touchdown
- 7:24 PM MDT (01:24 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:35 PM MDT (01:35 UTC)
- On the ground
- 11 minutes
- Path length
- 2.0 miles (3.2 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Box Butte County
- Touchdown point
- 42.120, -102.908
- Lift-off point
- 42.120, -102.908
- Record number
- 1006071924-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Moist southerly winds brought 50 to mid 60 degree dew points into the area. Due to so much moisture present, low status formed and lasted through the early afternoon. The stratus caused the atmosphere to remain stable through the early afternoon until the stratus began to clear out. With the moisture still present during the afternoon and a strong jet stream overhead, thunderstorms that former over the higher terrain of Southeast Wyoming began to move eastward into the panhandle. The unstable conditions also allowed thunderstorms to develop in the panhandle during the late afternoon and evening hours.
No damage was reported with the tornado. Estimated duration, path length and width.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
22 minutes of warning. NWS CYS issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:02 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:31 UTC and running to 04:02 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:31 UTC | 04:02 UTC | Tornado Watch | CYS |
| 23:57 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CYS |
| 00:12 UTC | 01:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CYS |
| 00:40 UTC | 01:18 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CYS |
| 00:43 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CYS |
| 00:44 UTC | 03:30 UTC | Flood Advisory | CYS |
| 01:02 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | CYS |
| 01:14 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | CYS |
| 01:43 UTC | 02:10 UTC | Tornado Warning | CYS |
| 02:01 UTC | 05:36 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | CYS |
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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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.
Rapid City, SD (KUNR), 00:00Z
1.4 hours before the tornado, 217 km from the path. June 8, 2010.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 3 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -179 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 472 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 769 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 77 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 2 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 8 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 317 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.9 K/km
Rapid City, SD (KUNR), 12:00Z
10.6 hours after it, 217 km from the path. June 8, 2010.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -81439 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1727 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 70 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -69 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 43 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.5 K/km
The radar
The Cheyenne radar (KCYS), 191 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:24 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 7 N Hemingford | Box Butte, NE | 3 INCH LIMB RIPPED OFF TREE. ESTIMATED WIND SPEEDS TO BE 70 MPH TO 80 MPH. TIME ESTIMATED REPORT. |
| 01:02 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 19 W Alliance | Box Butte, NE | |
| 01:25 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Nw Alliance | Box Butte, NE | OFFICER AT THIS LOCATION REPORTED A TORNADO ON THE GROUND. |
| 01:33 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Minatare | Scotts Bluff, NE | LOCATED ALONG US HIGHWAY 26. |
| 01:38 UTC | TSTM WND GST 55 | Minatare | Scotts Bluff, NE | MEASURED BY PROBES LOCATED ALONG US HIGHWAY 26 |
| 01:38 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Alliance | Box Butte, NE | MARBLE TO PING PONG SIZED HAIL REPORTED. |
| 01:40 UTC | NON-TSTM WND GST 60 | 17 Nne Antioch | Sheridan, NE | PUBLIC REPORT OF AT LEAST 60 MPH WINDS WITH DIME SIZED HAIL BREAKING OUT WINDOWS OF HOUSE. |
| 01:45 UTC | HAIL 1 | 5 Nw Bayard | Scotts Bluff, NE | HAIL NOT SYMMETRIC. HAIL WAS INCH ACROSS BUT VERY THIN. |
| 01:51 UTC | TSTM WND GST 55 | 2 S Bayard | Morrill, NE | REPORTED ALONG US HIGHWAY 26. |
| 01:55 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Sw Bayard | Morrill, NE | TORNADO SPOTTED. TOTALLY DAMAGED RV. RATED AN EF1 TORNADO. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2010 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 7, 2010
8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 7 | 6:20 PM MDT | EF0 | Sioux, NE | 0.5 | 100 | |||
| June 7 | 7:11 PM MDT | EF0 | Bowman, ND | 1.7 | 25 | $50,000 | ||
| June 7 | 7:23 PM MDT | EF1 | Scotts Bluff, NE | 19.0 | 100 | |||
| June 7 | 7:25 PM MDT | EF0 | Scotts Bluff, NE | 0.3 | 100 | |||
| June 7 | 7:28 PM MDT | EF0 | Scotts Bluff, NE | 0.3 | 100 | |||
| June 7 | 7:54 PM MDT | EF1 | Morrill, NE | 2.0 | 100 | $60,000 | ||
| June 7 | 8:12 PM MDT | EF0 | Bowman, ND | 0.3 | 25 | |||
| June 7 | 8:28 PM MDT | EF0 | Morrill, NE | 1.0 | 100 |
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.