EF2 tornado, Edgar, Nebraska, May 27, 2013

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 27, 2013

Touchdown

7:32 PM CDT (00:32 UTC)

Lifted

7:40 PM CDT (00:40 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

4.5 miles (7.2 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$4.0 million

County

Clay County

Touchdown point

40.374, -98.014

Lift-off point

40.365, -97.930

Record number

1305271832-01

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 EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• point 4. Extensive damage to farmstead. see notes.
• huge metal bldg destroyed. could not get close. similar bldg behind it in picture. trees just west minimal dog

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

This Monday, also Memorial Day, was one of the more widespread severe weather events of spring 2013 over South Central Nebraska. The first storms developed over Phelps and Harlan counties around 4:30 pm CDT, and they formed as a short line segment of supercells that exhibited multicell characteristics. Several cell splits occurred during the following two hours, each of which headed north of Interstate 80 and then weakened. The storms that comprised the original line segment continued to advance eastward, remaining south of Interstate 80. After about 7 pm CDT, they transitioned to a dominant multicell mode in the form of a large cluster. The initial storms produced the most hail, including the strongest of the left split supercells of this event, which produced hail as far north as Buffalo county. The largest hail reported was the size of golf balls. As the thunderstorm mode transitioned to multicellular, damaging winds became the primary severe weather threat. Several locations, from Kearney county east to Fillmore county, measured winds in excess of 70 mph. The highest wind measured was 78 mph near Davenport. However, damage surveys suggested winds were as high as 90 mph. Trees and power lines were knocked down, several grain bins were damaged or destroyed and irrigation pivots were overturned. An EF-2 tornado was confirmed in southern Clay County, affecting the town of Edgar. This non-supercellular tornado formed at the leading edge of the line, just after a strong surge of downdraft winds within the line.||With the 8 am CDT Severe Weather Outlook, the Storm Prediction Center upgraded South Central Nebraska, south of Highway 6, to a moderate risk for severe thunderstorms. A weak short-wave trough was approaching the region, embedded within a broad upper-level trough, over the western United States. A quasi-stationary front, oriented in an east-west fashion, extended across Nebraska. During the early morning hours, a mesoscale convective system tracked through eastern Nebraska southeastward into Missouri. This MCS laid down an outflow boundary that extended across northern Kansas, to a lee-side low. It was to the north of this outflow boundary that storms initiated. At the time of initial thunderstorm development, temperatures were in the lower to middle 80s south of the front, with dewpoints in the middle 60s. This resulted in a moderately unstable atmosphere, with MLCAPE between 2000 and 3000 J/kg. Deep layer shear was 40 to 50 knots, which was more that strong enough for supercell storm structures.

This EF2 tornado touched down during the early evening hours just west of Edgar and was on the ground between 5 and 10 minutes before lifting just southeast of Edgar. The maximum speed was estimated at 115 MPH with a maximum width of 250 yards. Damage along the path included snapped power poles, overturned irrigation pivots, grain bin and outbuilding damage. In Edgar itself, a large metal building was destroyed, other buildings suffered minor damage and the grain elevator was damaged.

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

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:50 UTC and running to 03:32 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:41 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), 40 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:30 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 2013 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

15 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.