EF1 tornado, Scottsbluff to Scottsbluff Arpt, Nebraska, June 7, 2010

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

June 7, 2010

Touchdown

7:23 PM MDT (01:23 UTC)

Lifted

8:00 PM MDT (02:00 UTC)

On the ground

37 minutes

Path length

19.0 miles (30.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Scotts Bluff County

Touchdown point

41.870, -103.645

Lift-off point

41.710, -103.350

Record number

1006071923-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CYS, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Partial roof liftoff on showroom building. Inside ceiling tile damage. Hail damage on most cars in dealership lot an inch to a couple inches in size.
• Minor roof damage and knocked over fence. Small tree limb also broken.
• Grain elevator severely damaged. Three grain bins ripped off of foundation and thrown into the adjacent field. Grain bin metal dented and twisted. Grain elevator building damage, roof pieces torn up and dents to siding. Portion of one of the grain bins ended up half mile down SR 92 at 41 46 43.1, 103 30 11.3
• Big limbs broken off of trees, trunks snapped and bark stripped.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

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.

A storm damage survey team from the National Weather Service in Cheyenne confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down in eastern Scotts Bluff County on Monday evening June 7th, 2010. Additionally, some of the damage was attributed to strong straight-line thunderstorm winds. Baseball sized hail accompanied this tornadic thunderstorm.| |Based on the survey and interviews with area residents, an EF-1 tornado touched down on the east side of the city of Scottsbluff. An automotive dealership sustained roof damage. Five mobile home trailers were over-turned in the Wagon Wheel Trailer Park. An outbuilding collapsed and a metal shed sustained substantial roof damage 2.4 miles southeast of Scottsbluff along County Road 24. A roof was torn off a garage and numerous trees were uprooted south of Highway 26, 5.4 miles southeast of Scottsbluff. Four grain bins were removed from their foundations in the town of Melbeta. One of the grain bins was lifted one half mile from its foundation. Based on this damage it was determined that the tornado path consisted of numerous spin-ups over the 19-mile damage path. The tornado finally dissipated just north of Chimney Rock at around 8 pm.||The damage to the mobile homes...trees north of Melbeta...and the grain bins were consistent with EF-1 tornado damage with winds estimated to be in the 93 to 98 mph range.

Also had 1.75 inch hail. Definite rotation in sky and definite rotation of dirt on the ground. Estimated duration, path width and length. No damage reported at this location.

Brief touchdown reported SW of Scottsbluff airport with 80 MPH wind gust observed at 1827MST. Estimated duration, path length and width due to this being a brief touchdown.

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

21 minutes of warning. NWS CYS issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:02 UTC, 21 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.

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 0.05 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 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.

The Cheyenne radar (KCYS), 130 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.

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 2010 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

8 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.