EF3 tornado, Coleridge to Laurel, Nebraska, June 17, 2014

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

June 17, 2014

Touchdown

8:09 PM CDT (01:09 UTC)

Lifted

8:56 PM CDT (01:56 UTC)

On the ground

47 minutes

Path length

4.0 miles (6.4 km)

Path width

2,059 yards (1883 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$2.0 million

County

Cedar County

Touchdown point

42.537, -97.256

Lift-off point

42.528, -97.180

Record number

1406171909-01

201 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 200 mph.

• grain bin partially collapsed
• overturned center pivot and crushed grain bin (move point)
• Former location of Dehydration plant. There was a lot of cleanup going on at this location at survey time but deputies that were on site right away said it was all leveled by the tornado. There were also at leat 2 semi trucks there that were heavily damaged.
• metal scoreboard uprooted and twisted. metal bleacher tossed 100 ft

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

The warm front that was responsible for the significant tornadoes on the afternoon of the 16th, lifted slightly north on the 17th into far northeast Nebraska. Extreme instability again developed along this boundary given the very warm and humid airmass in place across the region. By late afternoon an isolated supercell thunderstorm developed along this boundary and quickly become severe. This lone supercell produced several tornadoes, 3 of which were strong, as well as large hail and flash flooding, over Cedar County Nebraska over the next 4 hours.

This was the strongest of the tornadoes that the Cedar County supercell produced. This tornado developed to the northwest of Coleridge and moved slowly east southeast just to the north of the city of Coleridge. As the tornado neared 567th Ave the tornado turned to the south along the eastern edge of the city producing some significant structural damage along the eastern side of Coleridge. The tornado continued south until nearing 875th Road where the foward speed further slowed, and the tornado changed to an eastern movement while becoming rain-wrapped. The eastern direction occurred for a half mile before the tornado moved almost due north along 568th Ave while significantly weakening. The most significant damage, which was strong EF3, occurred to the north of Coleridge along the 876th Road. Here, two farm houses were destroyed down to the foundation and trees were snapped and debarked. The total path of the tornado, including all the turns, was 8.24 miles.

This short-lived tornado traveled to the east and impacted two farmsteads along 873rd Road. One of these farms had significant damage where large portions of the roof of the home were removed and outbuildings were completely destroyed.

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

9 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:00 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:48 UTC and running to 04:13 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 Slight 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 01:00 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.

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 Sioux Falls radar (KFSD), 124 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:07 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

19 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.