EF0 tornado, Sterling to Cook, Nebraska, April 14, 2012

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

April 14, 2012

Touchdown

4:50 PM CDT (21:50 UTC)

Lifted

4:55 PM CDT (21:55 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.8 miles (4.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Johnson County

Touchdown point

40.461, -96.373

Lift-off point

40.463, -96.335

Record number

1204141550-02

A strong upper level system over the southern Rockies lifted northeast across the plains causing an intense surface low pressure system and attendant warm front to lift into Nebraska. The main warm front remained either in southern Nebraska or in Kansas, and the shear and instability associated with the system produced widespread multi-cellular convection with embedded super cell thunderstorms near and north of the front. The more surface based super cells produced several tornadoes in southeast Nebraska and southwest Iowa, while more elevated storms in northeast Nebraska produced very large hail. In addition, areas of very heavy rain produced isolated flash and river flooding across the area.

The tornado touched down on the east side of Sterling, just west of Highway 41. A concession stand at a baseball stadium was blown over near there as was a traffic sign. A path of mainly tree limb damage continued east including a few uprooted trees which blocked county roads. The tornado lifted about 2.75 miles east of Sterling.

A weak tornado overturned a few center pivots as it tracked mostly in open fields southwest of Talmage. Some tree and outbuildings were also damaged along its 3.75 mile path. The tornado initially touched down just in Johnson county, but most of the track was in Nemaha county.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:00 UTC and running to 23:27 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:43 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 Omaha radar (KOAX), 95 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:49 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 2012 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

83 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 84 of them

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.