Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2011
EF0 tornado, North Bend to Ames, Nebraska, June 17, 2011
From North Bend to Ames, this EF0 tornado ran 3.0 miles across Dodge County on June 17, 2011, touching down at 6:50 PM CDT and reaching 50 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 17, 2011
- Touchdown
- 6:50 PM CDT (23:50 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:05 PM CDT (00:05 UTC)
- On the ground
- 15 minutes
- Path length
- 3.0 miles (4.8 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Dodge County
- Touchdown point
- 41.470, -96.724
- Lift-off point
- 41.478, -96.667
- Record number
- 1106171750-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Isolated slow moving thunderstorms developed on a weak boundary that extended across eastern Nebraska. Although low level wind shear was weak, there was enough instability in the lower levels of the storm that when combined with the weak boundary, at least one land spout-type tornado briefly spun up. In addition, with the slow movement of the storms, hail fell for an extended time at locations from the west side of Fremont toward Cedar Bluffs and Wahoo.
A narrow land spout-type tornado was on the ground for about 15 minutes in between Fremont and North Bend. The tornado was caught on video by several different people and was viewed by many in the Fremont toward Cedar Bluffs area. The tornado stayed in an open field and did little more than pick up dust.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
3 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:47 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:47 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | OAX |
| 00:10 UTC | 03:07 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | OAX |
| 00:22 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OAX |
| 00:52 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OAX |
| 00:55 UTC | 01:20 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OAX |
| 01:29 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OAX |
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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:39 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.
Omaha, NE (KOAX), 12:00Z
11.8 hours before the tornado, 32 km from the path. June 17, 2011.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 621 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -297 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 216 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 895 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 157 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 146 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.1 K/km
Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z
0.2 hours after it, 32 km from the path. June 18, 2011.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2547 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -17 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3406 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1461 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 48 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 8 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 40 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 39 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.3
- Supercell composite
- 2.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.8 K/km
The radar
The Omaha radar (KOAX), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:51 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:50 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 2 W Fremont | Dodge, NE | NUMEROUS FUNNEL CLOUD REPORTS WEST OF FREMONT AND ANOTHER POSSIBLY NORTH OF CEDAR BLUFFS. |
| 00:36 UTC | HAIL 1 | 1 Nw Fremont | Dodge, NE | |
| 00:36 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Cedar Bluffs | Saunders, NE | |
| 00:47 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 1 N Cedar Bluffs | Saunders, NE | |
| 00:49 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Fremont | Dodge, NE | DIME AND NICKEL SIZE HAIL WEST SIDE OF TOWN. |
| 00:56 UTC | HAIL 2 | Cedar Bluffs | Saunders, NE | HAIL NOW A LITTLE LARGER THAN GOLF BALL SIZE. HAIL HAS LASTED FOR AT LEAST 10 MINUTES AND WAS CAUSING SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE IN TOWN. |
| 01:00 UTC | HAIL 1 | 2 Wsw Fremont | Dodge, NE | STREET FLOODING ALSO REPORTED IN FREMONT WITH WATER TO NEAR CURB LEVEL. |
| 01:12 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | 3 Se Cedar Bluffs | Saunders, NE | |
| 01:21 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | 3 Se Cedar Bluffs | Saunders, NE | HAIL HAS SHRUNK TO AROUND DIME SIZE BUT WAS ACCUMULATING ON THE GROUND SIGNIFICANTLY. |
| 01:41 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 9 N Fremont | Dodge, NE | ALSO POSSIBLY CAUGHT ON VIDEO FROM CHASER. FUNNEL COULD HAVE POSSIBLY TOUCHED DOWN BRIEFLY. NO REPORTS OF DAMAGE AT TIME OF REPORT. |
| 02:04 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Colon | Saunders, NE | |
| 02:29 UTC | HAIL 1 | Wahoo | Saunders, NE | |
| 02:31 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Wahoo | Saunders, NE | |
| 02:45 UTC | HAIL 1 | Wahoo | Saunders, NE | UP TO QUARTER SIZE LASTED FROM AROUND 928 UNTIL 945 PM. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2011 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 17, 2011
1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 17 | 6:28 PM CDT | EF0 | Marshall, SD | 0.6 | 30 |
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.