EF0 tornado, Stamford to Oxford, Nebraska, May 9, 2015

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

May 9, 2015

Touchdown

8:25 PM CDT (01:25 UTC)

Lifted

8:27 PM CDT (01:27 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

15 yards (14 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Harlan County

Touchdown point

40.130, -99.550

Lift-off point

40.134, -99.549

Record number

1505091925-01

2 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.

• Spotter reported brief touchdown.

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

Two brief tornadoes occurred in Harlan County on this Saturday evening, with a couple reports of severe hail as well nearby. Scattered thunderstorms developed over north central Kansas between 530 and 600 p.m. CST. Several small thunderstorms lifted north, into and through Harlan County, over the following two hours. The last storm to move through produced a couple brief, weak tornadoes around 730 p.m. CST. This storm also produced one inch hail in a couple locations over Phelps County, just after 8 p.m. CST. Other small thunderstorms continued across south central Nebraska, and just before 11 p.m., a storm briefly became strong enough to produce a few one inch hailstones in Kearney. However, most of the hail was the size of nickels or smaller.||A continental polar air mass was over the region, but lee cyclogenesis was underway. By midnight, low pressure had migrated from northwestern Kansas and into south central Nebraska. The associated warm front had also lifted north along with it. At upper-levels, a deep trough was over the Rockies with a closed low over Colorado, and a coupled jet streak configuration. A ridge was downstream over the eastern United States. South central Nebraska had been shrouded in low stratus and fog all day, with temperatures struggling to rise through the 50s. Dewpoints depressions were very low. MUCAPE was only 500 J/kg, but deep layer shear was around 45 knots. Strengthening and significantly veering low-level wind fields resulted in 0-1 km SRH of 200-300 m2/s2.

This was a brief tornado that crossed Highway 89 between Stamford and Orleans. No damage was reported with this tornado.

This was a brief touchdown north-northeast of Stamford. No damage was reported with this tornado.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 03:26 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.

Holdrege/Brewstr (HDE), 40 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), 96 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:26 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 2015 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

28 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.