Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2012

EF0 tornado, Dodge to Webster, Nebraska, August 8, 2012

From Dodge to Webster, this EF0 tornado ran 1.9 miles across Dodge County on August 8, 2012, touching down at 4:36 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
August 8, 2012
Touchdown
4:36 PM CDT (21:36 UTC)
Lifted
4:45 PM CDT (21:45 UTC)
On the ground
9 minutes
Path length
1.9 miles (3.0 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Dodge County
Touchdown point
41.657, -96.884
Lift-off point
41.631, -96.872
Record number
1208081536-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Scattered thunderstorms, a few severe, developed on a weak boundary during the afternoon of August 8th. The boundary extended nearly north to south from east of Norfolk to east of Lincoln and Beatrice its position aided by earlier convection that tracked across northeast Nebraska and western Iowa. Temperatures west of the boundary climbed to around 100 degrees with west to northwest winds. Meanwhile, readings east of it were several degrees cooler with southeast winds. The storms were further strengthened by an upper level disturbance that tracked southeast out of South Dakota which pushed a cool front south across the region. The storms developed along the north to south boundary in Nebraska and produced pockets of strong winds and hail, some of it large, as they pushed into far southeast Nebraska and southwest Iowa.

A narrow high-based funnel cloud eventually touched down in between Dodge and North Bend. The tornado was very narrow and most likely caused little or no damage. The funnel and/or tornado were observed and photographed from many different directions and from miles away. The funnel initially formed on a developing towering cumulus cloud on a boundary in the area.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:38 UTC22:15 UTCTornado WarningOAX
21:56 UTC00:25 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WatchOAX
22:01 UTC22:18 UTCTornado WarningOAX

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 19:49 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

9.6 hours before the tornado, 56 km from the path. August 8, 2012.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 2012-08-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 994 joules per kilogram, CIN -254, lifted condensation level 1661 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 2012-08-08The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 103 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 22 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
994 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-254 J/kg
Surface CAPE
525 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1661 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
103 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
78 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.4
0-3 km lapse rate
4.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z

2.4 hours after it, 56 km from the path. August 9, 2012.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 2012-08-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 45 joules per kilogram, CIN -196, lifted condensation level 2578 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 2012-08-09The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 64 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
45 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-196 J/kg
Surface CAPE
167 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2578 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
64 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
110 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Fremont Municipal Arp (FET), 37 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
19:55 UTC93.26590° 8 kt1012.5
20:15 UTC9464.58110° 7 kt1012.5
20:35 UTC9565.12160° 8 kt1012.2
20:55 UTC95.3665.3180° 7 kt1011.9
21:15 UTC95.5464.760° 0 kt1011.2
21:35 UTC93.3863.320° 0 kt1011.2
21:55 UTC92.365360° 4 kt1011.2
22:15 UTC75.5664.58260° 24 kt331012.9RA
22:35 UTC75.7458.46230° 6 kt1012.5-VCTSRA
22:55 UTC76.6463.86280° 8 kt1012.2VCTSRA
23:15 UTC80.4265320° 5 kt1011.5
23:35 UTC79.886220° 9 kt151011.9

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:35 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
21:36 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD5 Se HowellsColfax, NEMAY HAVE BRIEFLY TOUCHED THE GROUND. VERY SKINNY.
21:38 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD15 Se HowellsDodge, NEVERY SKINNY
21:40 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD8 N Morse BluffDodge, NE
22:14 UTCHAIL 14 Se Morse BluffSaunders, NEENTIRE GROUND IS WHITE

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

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.