EF2 tornado, Beaver Crossing to Garland, Nebraska, May 11, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 11, 2014

Touchdown

5:53 PM CDT (22:53 UTC)

Lifted

6:05 PM CDT (23:05 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

4.7 miles (7.5 km)

Path width

330 yards (302 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Seward County

Touchdown point

40.872, -97.035

Lift-off point

40.889, -96.949

Record number

1405111653-01

166 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ABR and NWS OAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 132 mph.

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

One long-tracked supercell thunderstorm, and several other shorter-lived storms spawned tornadoes across eastern Nebraska during the late afternoon and evening hours of May 11th. The storms developed near the intersection of a warm front and dry-line/cold front in south central Nebraska then tracked northeast along the warm front toward the Lincoln and Omaha areas. Conditions in the area were very unstable with temperatures in the 80s to around 90 south of the warm front with dew point temperatures in the 60s. In total 12 tornadoes were recorded in the Omaha/Valley warning area with several others in the Hastings forecast area. The storms also produced very heavy rainfall which caused some flooding, mostly north through west and southwest of Lincoln.

This tornado developed rapidly after the Beaver Crossing tornado as the supercell continued to move northeast. The tornado quickly strengthened to EF2 and completed destroyed several large outbuildings as it crossed Pioneers and Van Dorn Roads. The tornado turned more northeast as it crossed A street downing power lines and snapping trees. The tornado crossed Interstate 80 about a half mile west of the of the Highway 15 interchange where a semi tractor trailer was overturned. The tornado weakened and turned east as it moved north of the Interstate and produced mainly minor tree and power line damage.

This tornado initially touched down southwest of Garland and was from the same supercell thunderstorm that produced the EF3 tornado that hit Beaver Crossing. Soon after this tornado developed it moved through a newly developed areas of homes along Sunset Rd to the southwest of Garland. Here the tornado was responsible for completely destroying several well built large outbuildings. In addition the tornado damaged two homes where the roofs were partially removed, as well downing numerous trees in this area. The tornado continued east along US Highway 34 while weakening, but still damaging small outbuildings and breaking tree limbs.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:40 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:21 UTC and running to 03:00 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 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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 Omaha radar (KOAX), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:51 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.

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

35 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.