Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2014

EF1 tornado, Walthill, Nebraska, June 5, 2014

This EF1 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Thurston County on June 5, 2014, touching down at 2:51 PM CDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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 mphthis tornado

    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.

The record

Rating
EF1
Date
June 5, 2014
Touchdown
2:51 PM CDT (19:51 UTC)
Lifted
2:56 PM CDT (19:56 UTC)
On the ground
5 minutes
Path length
1.5 miles (2.4 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Thurston County
Touchdown point
42.176, -96.501
Lift-off point
42.157, -96.489
Record number
1406051351-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Isolated thunderstorms develop across northeast Nebraska and west central Iowa during the mid afternoon. Initial thunderstorms were isolated supercells that produced large hail. One of the supercells interacted with a weak boundary in northeast Nebraska and produced a weak tornado that was observed by spotters and the general public in the city of Walthill. The thunderstorms moved southeast through the evening produced isolated severe weather down to near interstate 80 in eastern Nebraska before dissipating.

This short lived tornado developed just northwest of the town of Walthill and moved southeast. The tornado impacted 1 farmstead along the short path. Here the tornado removed part of the roof of the home, destroyed out buildings, and uprooted trees.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
19:31 UTC20:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOAX
20:03 UTC20:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOAX
20:17 UTC21:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOAX
20:30 UTC20:41 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOAX
20:57 UTC21:05 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningOAX
21:56 UTC23:15 UTCTornado WatchOAX

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:32 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 air that afternoon

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.

Omaha, NE (KOAX), 12:00Z

7.9 hours before the tornado, 95 km from the path. June 5, 2014.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 2014-06-05Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 446 joules per kilogram, CIN -29, lifted condensation level 593 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 2014-06-05The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -13 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
446 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-29 J/kg
Surface CAPE
272 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
593 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
3 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-13 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
51 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z

4.1 hours after it, 95 km from the path. June 6, 2014.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 2014-06-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1206 joules per kilogram, CIN -10, lifted condensation level 1186 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 2014-06-06The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 24 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
1206 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-10 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2147 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1186 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
24 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
107 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.3
Supercell composite
2.6
0-3 km lapse rate
7.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 95 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:51 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
19:47 UTCHAIL 1WinnebagoThurston, NE
20:00 UTCFUNNEL CLOUDWalthillThurston, NE
20:00 UTCHAIL 1.75WinnebagoThurston, NE
20:05 UTCTSTM WND DMGWalthillThurston, NEDAMAGE TO HOME AND TREES DOWN NEAR WALTHILL.
20:30 UTCHAIL 1.75MacyThurston, NENEAR MACY
20:50 UTCHAIL 1.75RosalieThurston, NE

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of June 5, 2014

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 52:14 PM CDTEF0Minnehaha, SD0.250
June 53:40 PM CDTEF0Lincoln, SD0.450
June 54:25 PM CDTEF0Sargent, ND0.110
June 54:34 PM CDTEF1Limestone, AL0.7100
June 55:02 PM CDTEF0Cass, ND0.110
June 55:05 PM CDTEF0Rock, MN0.350
June 57:21 PM EDTEF0Gilmer, GA0.850$50,000
June 56:49 PM CDTEF0Murray, MN0.350
June 58:07 PM MDTEF0Bent, CO0.450

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.