Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2016

EF0 tornado, Memphis, Nebraska, August 1, 2016

This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Saunders County on August 1, 2016, touching down at 4:21 PM CDT and reaching 15 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 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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
August 1, 2016
Touchdown
4:21 PM CDT (21:21 UTC)
Lifted
4:25 PM CDT (21:25 UTC)
On the ground
4 minutes
Path length
0.0 miles (0.1 km)
Path width
15 yards (14 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Saunders County
Touchdown point
41.043, -96.465
Lift-off point
41.043, -96.464
Record number
1608011521-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A cold front slowly moved south during the afternoon on August 4th into eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. The front neared the Interstate 80 corridor by late afternoon. In addition, an outflow boundary from early storms in southeast Nebraska and southwest Iowa was lifting north. Isolated to scattered thunderstorms developed during peak heating along these two boundaries. Due to the combination of the thunderstorms developing on the stalling boundaries and very steep low-level lapse rates two landspout tornadoes were observed. Otherwise the thunderstorms were largely non-severe with gusty non-severe winds and heavy rainfall.

A brief landspout tornado was reported via social media. The tornado was small and last only a couple of minutes with no damage reported.

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.

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 21:41 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

9.4 hours before the tornado, 32 km from the path. August 1, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 12:00Z on 2016-08-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 780 joules per kilogram, CIN -471, lifted condensation level 926 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 2016-08-01The 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 465 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 knots.193958Sfc1 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
780 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-471 J/kg
Surface CAPE
347 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
926 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
42 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
465 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
494 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
3.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Omaha, NE (KOAX), 00:00Z

2.6 hours after it, 32 km from the path. August 2, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Omaha, NE at 00:00Z on 2016-08-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 425 joules per kilogram, CIN -377, lifted condensation level 1200 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 2016-08-02The 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 88 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 24 knots.193958Sfc1 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
425 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-377 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1396 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1200 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
88 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
200 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Wahoo (AHQ), 25 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
19:35 UTC81.3267150° 19 kt291014.2
19:55 UTC81.6868.54140° 17 kt251014.2
20:15 UTC8267150° 19 kt291013.9
20:35 UTC82.467.28150° 19 kt301013.9
20:55 UTC82.466.74160° 22 kt291013.5
21:15 UTC82.5867.64160° 20 kt271013.2
21:35 UTC82.5867.28160° 19 kt251012.9
21:55 UTC83.368.54160° 15 kt201012.5
22:15 UTC83.6668.18170° 13 kt241012.2
22:35 UTC83.4868.18170° 16 kt211012.2
22:55 UTC83.6669160° 14 kt211012.2
23:15 UTC84.269.8150° 6 kt1012.9

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:19 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 1, 2016

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 14:40 PM EDTEF0Worcester, MD3.850$75,000

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.