EF0 tornado, Washington, Nebraska, August 23, 2016

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

August 23, 2016

Touchdown

7:58 PM CDT (00:58 UTC)

Lifted

7:59 PM CDT (00:59 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Washington County

Touchdown point

41.419, -96.172

Lift-off point

41.420, -96.171

Record number

1608231858-01

27 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 98 mph.

• Cottonwood snapped, somewhat rotted. OPPD photo.

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

As a cold front moved into northeast Nebraska during the day on August 23rd, warm and moist air returned northward into the area along a warm front. As temperatures increased into the mid and upper 80s along and south of the warm front, thunderstorms began to develop by late afternoon. These thunderstorms continued to increase in coverage and intensity during the evening. Favorable shear along the warm front allowed for some of the storms to form into supercells and produce severe weather. Late in the evening the thunderstorms formed into a complex and moved southeast across eastern Nebraska and southwest Iowa with severe weather and heavy rainfall occurring.

A rapidly rotating wall cloud was observed to the north northeast of the town of Washington. The wall cloud produced a funnel that briefly had a condensation to the surface with a dust debris cloud present. No damage was observed in the area from the tornado.

A second brief touchdown was observed from the same supercell that produced the earlier tornado. This brief touchdown occurred just to the northeast of the previous touchdown. No damage was observed in the area.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:50 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:15 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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.

Blair (BTA), 5 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 20 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:57 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 2016 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.