EF0 tornado, Greeley, Nebraska, June 3, 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 3, 2014

Touchdown

5:01 PM CDT (22:01 UTC)

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Greeley County

Touchdown point

41.637, -98.532

Lift-off point

41.637, -98.532

Record number

1406031601-01

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 70 mph.

• Brief touchdown reported by spotters. No damage. No path.

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

For roughly the northeast half of this 24-county South Central Nebraska area, this late Tuesday afternoon and evening featured one of the most widespread severe weather events of the 2014 convective season. In essence, three separate waves of primarily outflow-dominant convection rolled across the area along a west-northwest to east-southeast path over the course of several hours, resulting in dozens of reports of large hail and damaging winds, along with three fairly brief tornadoes, two rated EF0 and one EF1. There was a notably sharp cutoff in severe thunderstorm activity within South Central Nebraska, as nearly all storms concentrated northeast of a line from roughly Litchfield-Hastings-Geneva, while most locations southwest of this line did not even observe a single raindrop. Starting with the three tornadoes, the first two were brief, EF0 touchdowns that occurred in far northern Valley and north central Greeley counties during the 415-515 pm CDT time frame, and were associated with the first supercell storm of the event that tracked into the local area from the west-northwest. These tornadoes produced little if any direct damage. The third confirmed tornado of the event was a bit more significant, and occurred several hours later after dark, around 1030 pm CDT in eastern Hamilton County north of Hampton. This EF1 tornado struck two homes, blowing a portion of the roof off of one of them. As for large hail, there were several reports of stones up to around golf ball size in places such as Spalding, Osceola, Arcadia, York, McCool Junction and Exeter. Many places were hit with more than one round of hail, including York, where golf ball size hail first fell around 830 pm CDT and then again around 11 pm CDT. In many cases, hail was accompanied by severe outflow winds of generally 60-80 MPH, resulting in broken windows and siding damage to several structures, along with tree damage. As just a few specific examples of wind reports and damage: Ord airport measured a 79 MPH gust, a rural residence four miles northeast of Scotia sustained considerable damage to outbuildings along with broken house windows, and a grocery store in Wolbach had its roof peeled back. In addition to damaging winds directly associated with severe storms, places farther south near the Highway 6 corridor, including Hastings, observed the passage of a notably strong, southward-surging outflow boundary around 8 pm CDT that produced measured 70+ MPH winds and significant blowing dust. At the time this outflow plowed through Hastings, the nearest precipitation associated with actual thunderstorms was at least 15-20 miles off to the north-northeast. As for event-total rainfall, most of the affected areas tallied somewhere between 1-3, although localized higher amounts occurred mainly in Nance and Polk counties, including NeRAIN observer totals of 3.70 two miles west-northwest of Shelby and 3.68 seven miles north of Osceola. ||Taking a closer look at severe weather timing, the morning actually started out with a cluster of strong storms that rumbled through many of the same northern counties that would later see the main event. These early-day storms produced nickel size hail in Arcadia, but by 930 am CDT all morning activity had exited South Central Nebraska, kicking off a multi-hour lull. Then, generally between 430-630 pm CDT, round 1 of severe storms, anchored by an outflow-dominant supercell that produced the EF0 tornadoes, raked across mainly the far northern and northeastern fringes of the local area before exiting into eastern Nebraska. Around the time round 1 was exiting stage right, round 2 of severe storms entered Valley and Greeley counties from the northwest between 6-7 pm CDT and tracked east-southeast for the next few hours before exiting the eastern York County area around 9 pm CDT. Following a very similar theme, round 3 of severe storms initially intensified over the Valley/Sherman counties area between 830-930 pm CDT, and proceeded to pass east-southeast over many of the same areas as the previous round. However this final cluster of fairly fast-moving severe storms slipped a touch farther southeast, affecting more of the Fillmore County area before exiting into eastern Nebraska around 1230 am CDT on the 4th. Although a few non-severe storms lingered a bit later near the Interstate 80 corridor, essentially all of South Central Nebraska was finally storm-free by 230 am CDT.||On the mid-upper level synoptic scale, the main trigger for this event was an energetic, although fairly-low amplitude shortwave trough that raced out of the Intermountain West and into the Central Plains. A corresponding westerly mid-level speed max of around 60-70 knots at 500 millibars accompanied this wave, which combined with steepening mid level lapse rates and surface dewpoints generally in the low-mid 60s F to yield a fairly volatile late afternoon/early evening mesoscale environment featuring around 2000-3000 J/kg mixed-layer CAPE and a notable 60-70 knots of 0-6 kilometer deep layer shear. Low level shear and storm-relative helicity also became quite pronounced in the vicinity of a fairly sharp surface warm front that became quasi-stationary through much of the day and evening along an axis through northwest-central-southeast Nebraska. Despite the considerable severe weather that occurred, there were indications leading up to the event that it could have been worse. For one thing, the mesoscale environment was initially supportive of more destructive, longer-track tornadoes, but this threat steadily diminished as most storms quickly became outflow-dominant and generated a larger-scale cold pool. Secondly, the areal coverage of severe storms was not as widespread as it could have been, as a mid level capping inversion south of the strong warm front spared most of the southwest half of the local area from observing any convection. At any rate, this severe weather event was well-anticipated at least 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/refined the Moderate Risk area into the Day 1 period.

This brief tornado was witnessed by storm spotters, just east of U.S. Highway 281. This tornado contained a wind speed that was estimated at 70 mph.

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

18 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:43 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:15 UTC and running to 23:17 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 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.

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), 147 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:01 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

7 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.