EF0 tornado, Deshler, 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

2:30 PM CDT (19:30 UTC)

Lifted

2:31 PM CDT (19:31 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.0 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Thayer County

Touchdown point

40.150, -97.680

Lift-off point

40.150, -97.679

Record number

1204141330-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GID, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

• Storm Chaser report, video and pictures. No damage.
• Storm Chaser Report of event lifting in this area. No damage reportd.
• Breif Touchdown from chaser report.

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

Multiple rounds of severe thunderstorms pounded parts of the 24-county area on this Saturday, resulting in numerous reports of large hail and damaging winds along with four brief EF0 tornadoes. However, considering that the entire area spent the day under its only High Risk convective outlook of the spring from the Storm Prediction Center, the situation could have been worse. No injuries were reported in South Central Nebraska, and all significant, long-track tornadoes in the region remained to the south across central and southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. Locally, most severe weather targeted counties between Interstate 80 and the Kansas border. The first three brief tornadoes occurred between 2-3 PM CDT in Nuckolls and Thayer Counties, as a rain-wrapped supercell tracked out of northern Kansas. One of these tornadoes struck a farm just north of Alexandria, where a grain bin was toppled and a roof torn off a shed. A few hours later, the final and most-photographed tornado of the day touched down shortly after 6 PM CDT in Harlan County northeast of Oxford and crossed Highway 6, destroying a grain bin along the way. ||During this prolonged event, severe thunderstorms affected parts of the area for roughly 13 hours, mainly between 1030 AM and 1130 PM CDT. The first round of severe weather focused across northern portions of the area during the late morning as an elevated supercell tracked across parts of Sherman, Valley and Greeley Counties. This storm was a prolific hail producer, with hail of at least 2 inches in diameter causing considerable damage to homes and vehicles, especially north and west of Spalding. As these early storms exited to the northeast, the focus shifted south to near the Kansas border, as the next cluster of more-surface-based severe storms with embedded tornadic circulations lifted through primarily Nuckolls, Thayer and Fillmore Counties between 1-4 PM CDT. After a brief lull, a few more supercells fired up farther west around 5 PM CDT, with one of these storms producing the tornado near Oxford before weakening as it tracked northeast toward Kearney. Yet again, a brief lull ensued, before numerous severe thunderstorms flared up mainly south of Interstate 80 during the 830-1130 PM CDT time frame. Although these storms were not tornadic, multiple hail and wind reports included baseball size hail near Glenvil, golf ball size hail near Edison and McCool Junction and estimated 70 MPH winds and toppled irrigation center pivots near Campbell and east of Clay Center. Finally, between 1130 PM and 2 AM CDT, the remaining storms gradually weakened and exited the area to the east. ||Although significant flooding was not an issue, most areas southeast of a line from Osceola to Franklin measured at least 1-2 inches of rain, with 2-3 inch amounts most concentrated within Nuckolls, Thayer and Fillmore Counties, including a 3.70-inch total just west of Tobias along the Fillmore and Saline County line. ||This long-lasting severe weather outbreak was driven by a classic synoptic setup, as a powerful mid-upper level trough approached the Central Plains from the Four Corners region, featuring a 300 millibar jet streak in excess of 110 knots. At the surface, low pressure deepened over the course of the day, registering around 992 millibars by early evening over northwest Kansas. A well-defined warm front extended east from this low across South Central Nebraska, as a sharpening dryline took shape along a line from southwest Nebraska to far western Oklahoma. With a strengthening and veering wind profile with height, shear parameters were quite supportive of significant severe weather. Around the time of the late afternoon tornado near Oxford, mesoscale severe weather parameters included around 1500 J/Kg mixed layer CAPE, 60-70 knots of deep layer vertical wind shear and 30-40 knots of surface-to-1 kilometer low level vertical shear. In addition, surface-to-1 kilometer storm relative helicity increased into at least the 300-500 m2/s2 range during the late afternoon and evening hours, promoting a volatile environment for potentially strong, long-track tornadoes. Fortunately for South Central Nebraska, the sheer number of storms along with resultant storm-scale interference likely mitigated what could have been a more significant tornado event. ||On a regional and even national level, this was one of the most anticipated and well-advertised Central Plains tornado outbreaks ever. Although the majority of South Central Nebraska was not in a High Risk outlook from the Storm Prediction Center until the early morning hours of the 14th, parts of Kansas and Oklahoma were placed under a High Risk early on the 13th, marking the first time SPC ever issued a High Risk forecast so far in advance.

No damage was reported with this brief tornado touchdown approximately 2 miles east of Deshler.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:25 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:06 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 0.45 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:21 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 Grand Island radar (KUEX), 67 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:29 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.