EF0 tornado, Bradshaw, Nebraska, April 27, 2014

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 27, 2014

Touchdown

4:40 PM CDT (21:40 UTC)

Lifted

4:41 PM CDT (21:41 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

45 yards (41 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

York County

Touchdown point

40.953, -97.707

Lift-off point

40.954, -97.707

Record number

1404271540-01

2 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 75 mph.

• Brief Touchdown of about 50 seconds

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

Isolated to scattered severe thunderstorms raked across portions of South Central Nebraska on this Sunday afternoon, resulting in not only several reports of large hail and damaging winds, but also Nebraska's first three tornadoes of 2014. Fortunately, these tornadoes were of the weak and brief variety (rated EF-0) and resulted in no reports of damage. The first tornado touched down shortly before 230 PM CDT in far northern Franklin County near Upland. The other two tornadoes occurred a few hours later between 430-530 PM, associated with the strongest, most organized supercell storm of the day as it tracked north through the far eastern counties of the local area. One of these tornadoes touched down north of Bradshaw in York County and the other in west-central Polk County several miles west-northwest of Osceola. As for hail reports, the majority of them originated from western Thayer and Fillmore and northern Adams counties, including some stones up to golf ball size. There were only a few reports of marginally severe winds, highlighted by a measured 62 MPH gust near Wood River. ||All strong to severe thunderstorms within the 24-county area occurred between 12-6 PM CDT in association with a seasonably classic and powerful, vertically-stacked low pressure system migrating northeastward into South Central Nebraska. All severe storms also concentrated east and northeast of a Lexington-Franklin line, as the far southwestern counties were spared due to the passage of a well-defined, northward-drifting surface dryline and occluding cold front. There were essentially two primary areas and modes of severe storm development. The first, which accounted for most of the day's thunderstorm activity, consisted of a broken arc of storms lifting north across mainly central and west-central portions of the area. Several individual cells within this arc drifted northwestward in sync with the counter-clockwise circulation of the parent low. The initial development got going over Dawson County between 12-1 PM CDT, but these storms yielded no reports of severe weather before departing the local area into Custer and Lincoln counties. Following a brief lull, the second and more dominant arc of convection flared up generally along an axis running from eastern Dawson to Webster counties between 130 PM and 3 PM CDT, during which time the first tornado occurred near Upland. Eventually, the eastern-most cells in the arc became the most intense as they lifted north-northwest, resulting in several hail reports along a path through counties including Adams, Hall and Sherman between 330 PM and 5 PM CDT before weakening and eventually departing the local area to the north. Meanwhile, the second primary area/mode of severe weather developed farther east, and revolved around an isolated supercell that developed over southwestern Thayer County around 230 PM CDT and then drifted almost due north for the next several hours, finally departing the local area out of far eastern Nance and Merrick counties around 6 PM CDT. This lone supercell produced both the York and Polk County tornadoes, along with several hail reports. Just to the east of this main supercell of the day, another briefly-severe storm affected far eastern York County around 5 PM CDT. All strong-severe convection vacated the entire 24-county area by around 6 PM CDT, leaving behind only lingering stratiform rain in western counties under the core of the mid level low.||On the synoptic scale, the day began with a deep, vertically stacked closed low centered over central portions of the Kansas-Colorado border area as its 984 millibar surface low started to occlude. By early afternoon, severe storm development in South Central Nebraska focused within a corridor of steep low level lapse rates under the mid-level dry slot, with the southwestern extent of storm development defined by the leading edge of the northward-drifting occluded front/dryline. By late afternoon, the deep low had migrated to near McCook, allowing the surface front to push northward through all of South Central and ending the severe threat. Ahead of this occluded front/sharp dryline, surface-based CAPE climbed to around 1000 J/kg in an environment featuring surface dewpoints in the mid-upper 50s F. Behind the boundary, dewpoints quickly crashed into the 30s F.

This tornado, which briefly touched down approximately 5 miles north-northeast of Bradshaw, was witnessed by storm chasers. No damage was reported with this tornado.

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

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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.

NWS Hastings, NE wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Apr 27, 3:11 PM CDT, 1 hour 29 minutes earlier.

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HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HASTINGS NE
327 PM CDT SUN APR 27 2014

KSZ005>007-017>019-NEZ039>041-046>049-060>064-072>077-082>087-
282030-
PHILLIPS-SMITH-JEWELL-ROOKS-OSBORNE-MITCHELL-VALLEY-GREELEY-NANCE-
SHERMAN-HOWARD-MERRICK-POLK-DAWSON-BUFFALO-HALL-HAMILTON-YORK-
GOSPER-PHELPS-KEARNEY-ADAMS-CLAY-FILLMORE-FURNAS-HARLAN-FRANKLIN-
WEBSTER-NUCKOLLS-THAYER-
327 PM CDT SUN APR 27 2014

...TORNADO WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR MUCH OF THE OUTLOOK AREA
THROUGH 7 PM...

...VERY WINDY CONDITIONS WILL OCCUR MONDAY ESPECIALLY SOUTH AND
WEST OF THE TRI-CITIES...

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR SOUTH CENTRAL NEBRASKA AND
PORTIONS OF NORTH CENTRAL KANSAS.

.DAY ONE...THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT.

SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS WILL CONTINUE TO DEVELOP THROUGH EARLY
THIS EVENING. SOME STORMS COULD BE SEVERE. THE MAIN THREATS WILL
BE HAIL UP TO THE SIZE OF GOLF BALLS...AND ISOLATED WIND
DAMAGE AND TORNADOES. THE THREAT OF SEVERE STORMS WILL END BY 7
PM.

A RED FLAG WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM FOR MOST OF THE
OUTLOOK AREA ALONG AND SOUTH OF HIGHWAY 6...FOR CRITICAL FIRE
WEATHER CONDITIONS. PLEASE SEE THE LATEST RED FLAG WARNING
MESSAGE FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY.

WINDY CONDITIONS WILL OCCUR MONDAY AND MONDAY EVENING...
ESPECIALLY WEST OF A LINE FROM KEARNEY NEBRASKA TO BELOIT KANSAS.
PLEASE SEE THE LATEST WIND ADVISORY MESSAGE FOR DETAILED
INFORMATION.

A STRONG NORTHWEST WIND WILL OVERTAKE THE OUTLOOK AREA ON
TUESDAY. A SUSTAINED WIND OF 25 TO 35 MPH...AS WELL AS GUSTS OF
40 TO AROUND 50 MPH...ARE CURRENTLY EXPECTED ACROSS THE AREA.

.SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...

SKYWARN SPOTTERS...PLEASE RELAY ALL REPORTS OF HAIL...WIND
DAMAGE...AND TORNADOES VIA PHONE...SOCIAL MEDIA...OR THE NEW
SUBMIT A REPORT LINK ON OUR WEBPAGE.

&&

MORE INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED AT THE FOLLOWING WEB PAGE:
   HTTP://WWW.WEATHER.GOV/HASTINGS  (ALL LOWERCASE)

HALBLAUB/BRYANT

In the hours before

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PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT...CORRECTED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HASTINGS NE
423 PM CDT SUN APR 27 2014

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0419 PM     HAIL             BRADSHAW                40.88N 97.75W
04/27/2014  E1.00 INCH       YORK               NE   CO-OP OBSERVER

&&

GUERRERO

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HASTINGS NE
426 PM CDT SUN APR 27 2014

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0423 PM     TSTM WND GST     CAIRO                   41.00N 98.61W
04/27/2014  E60 MPH          HALL               NE   TRAINED SPOTTER

&&

GUERRERO

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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.

York (JYR), 9 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 94 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:39 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2014 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

16 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.