Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2012
EF0 tornado, Bartlett, Nebraska, April 15, 2012
This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Wheeler County on April 15, 2012, touching down at 1:55 PM CDT and reaching 20 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
- April 15, 2012
- Touchdown
- 1:55 PM CDT (18:55 UTC)
- Lifted
- 1:56 PM CDT (18:56 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Wheeler County
- Touchdown point
- 42.000, -98.480
- Lift-off point
- 42.002, -98.478
- Record number
- 1204151255-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A few weak thunderstorms developed along a surface boundary located from central into northeast Nebraska on the afternoon of April 15th. These thunderstorms produced short-lived and weak tornadoes, before the storms quickly dissipated. One of the tornadoes hit a farmstead, causing damage to several buildings.
A tornado briefly touched down and lifted with no damage reported.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01:29 UTC | 02:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 18:00 UTC | 20:59 UTC | Wind Advisory | LBF |
| 20:59 UTC | 03:00 UTC | High Wind Warning | LBF |
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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:28 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
6.9 hours before the tornado, 191 km from the path. April 15, 2012.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 308 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -118 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 12 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 599 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 92 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 36 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 262 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 342 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z
5.1 hours after it, 191 km from the path. April 16, 2012.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 65 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -4 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 253 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 991 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 78 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 104 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 92 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.3 K/km
The radar
The North Platte radar (KLNX), 173 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:56 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17:33 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 2 N North Loup | Valley, NE | FUNNEL CLOUD REPORTED BY COUNTY OFFICIAL. |
| 18:05 UTC | TORNADO | 4 E Ericson | Wheeler, NE | TORNADO DAMAGE TO TWO BUILDINGS INCLUDING A WOOD FRAME BUILDING. THE ROOF WAS TORN OFF WITH PARTS SCATTERED ABOUT IN ALL DIRECTIONS. |
| 18:05 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Ne Ericson | Wheeler, NE | TORNADO DAMAGE TO TWO BUILDINGS INCLUDING A WOOD FRAME BUILDING. THE ROOF WAS TORN OFF WITH PARTS SCATTERED ABOUT IN ALL DIRECTIONS. |
| 18:55 UTC | TORNADO | 9 Nne Bartlett | Wheeler, NE | REPORTED WEAK FUNNEL BRIEFLY MADE CONTACT WITH THE GROUND. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2012 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 15, 2012
11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 15 | 5:49 AM CDT | EF1 | Osage, OK | 4.2 | 200 | $50,000 | ||
| April 15 | 9:22 AM CDT | EF1 | Cherokee, OK | 14.5 | 500 | $75,000 | ||
| April 15 | 11:48 AM CDT | EF0 | Sherman, NE | 0.5 | 40 | $60,000 | ||
| April 15 | 12:37 PM CDT | EF0 | Valley, NE | 0.0 | 25 | |||
| April 15 | 1:05 PM CDT | EF0 | Wheeler, NE | 0.1 | 35 | $54,000 | ||
| April 15 | 2:27 PM CDT | EF0 | Knox, NE | 0.4 | 40 | |||
| April 15 | 2:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Knox, NE | 0.5 | 25 | |||
| April 15 | 2:40 PM CDT | EF0 | Bon Homme, SD | 0.5 | 25 | |||
| April 15 | 4:11 PM CDT | EF0 | Lyon, MN | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| April 15 | 5:24 PM CDT | EF0 | McLeod, MN | 0.1 | 15 | |||
| April 15 | 6:11 PM CDT | EF1 | Van Buren, AR | 2.3 | 300 | $30,000 |
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.