EF0 tornado, Giltner, Nebraska, June 14, 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

June 14, 2014

Touchdown

10:05 PM CDT (03:05 UTC)

Lifted

10:06 PM CDT (03:06 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hamilton County

Touchdown point

40.720, -98.217

Lift-off point

40.720, -98.217

Record number

1406142105-01

1 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.

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

During a month that had several rounds of severe weather in South Central Nebraska, what transpired on this Saturday evening into the very early morning of Sunday the 15th was likely one of the most significant severe weather events of the entire 2014 convective season, especially in terms of widespread wind damage that raked from west-to-east through most locations near and south of Interstate 80 during the later evening. Earlier in the event, more discrete convection resulted primarily in numerous reports of severe-criteria hail, some as large as tennis ball to grapefruit size, along with four confirmed, brief EF0 tornadoes that yielded no reports of damage. The first of these tornadoes occurred in northwestern Franklin County near Hildreth around 730 pm CDT. The other three tornadoes were associated with a supercell storm that drifted northeast out of Kansas along a path from Webster to Hamilton counties before being absorbed into a larger line of convection. The first of these tornadoes was sighted in far southwestern Webster County around 830 pm CDT while the final two brief touchdowns occurred after nightfall in southwestern Hamilton County between Trumbull and Giltner between 1000-1030 pm CDT. In terms of hail, the largest confirmed stone of 4.25 fell three miles southeast of Hastings around 930 pm CDT. Other notable hail reports included stones up to baseball size along the Nance-Merrick County line, in and near Gibbon, near Ayr and in Arapahoe. However, in terms of widespread damage, the aforementioned severe squall line that rolled across roughly the southern half of the 24-county area later in the evening ended up being the big story of this event. Based on known wind and damage reports (which likely only represented a fraction of the total, individual instances of storm damage across the area), this north-to-south oriented squall line produced a swath of 60-90 MPH gusts through essentially all areas between Interstate 80 and the Kansas border. In addition to several estimated severe wind speeds, a few of the most intense measured gusts included 82 MPH by a storm chaser near the Interstate 80 York exit, 79 MPH at Hastings airport, and 76 MPH at home weather stations near Davenport and Ohiowa. Needless to say, a significant amount of wind damage occurred with this squall line as it uprooted or mangled countless trees and also damaged several structures, including outbuildings, grain bins and power poles. To cite just a few examples of this damage as it progressed from west to east: at Harlan County Lake at least four small boats were rammed into the shore and a camping trailer was overturned onto a vehicle, in Guide Rock a garage was blown off its foundation and partially onto a roadway, and at the Nuckolls County fairgrounds in Nelson a tin roof was removed from a barn, the roof of the arena was damaged and a camper was flipped on its side. Due to the fairly progressive nature of most storms, rainfall totals across much of South Central Nebraska did not exceed 1-2 inches. However, a southwest-to-northeast corridor of 2-3 and locally higher rainfall centered roughly 15 miles either side of a line from Wilcox-Grand Island-Genoa, featuring NeRAIN observer totals of 4.13 three miles west-southwest of Genoa and 4.06 two miles of Doniphan.||Breaking down event timing, the initial round of at least semi-discrete convection, including a few supercells, flared up between 530-730 pm CDT within a fairly narrow southwest-to-northeast oriented corridor along a slow-moving but well-defined cold front. Most of this early convection concentrated several miles either side of a line from near Franklin and Red Cloud in the south, then north-northeast through the Hastings-Grand Island-Central City-Fullerton areas. Generally between 730-930 pm CDT, this initially narrow corridor of storms gradually expanded in coverage to both the west and east. Then, even as ongoing convection remained strong to severe, the leading edges of the incoming, intense squall line raced out of southwest Nebraska, entering southwestern portions of the local area between 930-1030 pm CDT. For the next few hours generally between 1030 pm to 1 am CDT, this fierce, bowing line raced across the remainder of roughly the southern half of South Central Nebraska, while the far northern end of the line gradually merged with the earlier convection that had largely lifted north of Interstate 80 by this time and had weakened somewhat. Finally, between 1-2 am CDT, the line of severe storms cleared the far eastern edges of the local area near the Highway 81 corridor, leaving behind only a trailing zone of stratiform rain that lingered into the pre-dawn hours. ||On the synoptic scale, this was a fairly classic June setup for significant severe, as a progressive mid level shortwave trough kicked out of the Rockies and into the Central Plains, rotating around the southeast periphery of a parent closed low anchored over the Montana/Saskatchewan border area. As this occurred, strengthening and increasingly-diffluent mid-upper southwesterly flow overspread the local area. At the surface, a slow-moving cold front edged eastward into South Central Nebraska during the day, embedded within an elongated 992-996 millibar low pressure center stretched from western Kansas into eastern Nebraska by early evening. During the late-afternoon to mid-evening time frame, temperatures gradually decreased from highs in the upper-80s to lower-90s F while dewpoints generally held in the mid-60s F. Mesoscale severe weather parameters during the early-mid evening featured 2000-3000 J/kg mixed layer CAPE in the presence of 40-60 knots of 0-6 kilometer deep layer vertical wind shear. As the evening wore on, low level shear intensified as the nose of a 50-60 knot low level jet focused into the area. This severe weather outbreak was well-anticipated a few days in advance at both the local WFO level as well as by the Storm Prediction Center, which already placed most of South Central Nebraska in a Moderate Risk on the Day 2 outlooks 24-48 hours in advance and maintained/expanded the Moderate Risk area into the Day 1 period.

This brief tornado touchdown occurred approximately 5 miles south-southwest of Giltner. No damage was reported.

This brief tornado touchdown occurred approximately 3 miles west-southwest of Giltner. No damage was reported.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:49 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:10 UTC and running to 05:00 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. The outlook in force was issued at 01:14 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.

Hastings (HSI), 22 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), 48 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:05 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 2014 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.