EF0 tornado, (Hsi)Hastings Arpt, Nebraska, May 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

May 23, 2016

Touchdown

2:37 PM CDT (19:37 UTC)

Lifted

2:40 PM CDT (19:40 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Adams County

Touchdown point

40.638, -98.488

Lift-off point

40.640, -98.488

Record number

1605231337-01

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.

• No visible damage noted. Point taken via conversation with feedlot personnel who photographed the landspout tornado.
• Landspout tornado. No visible damage. Start position est from pictures.

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

Several storms produced severe hail on this Monday late in the afternoon and into the early evening. Between noon and 1 p.m. CST, scattered showers developed over Webster and Adams Counties. There were a few embedded rumbles of thunder. These showers expanded and lifted northeast into Hall, Hamilton, and Merrick Counties. A brief non-supercell tornado touched down near Juniata, in Adams County, around 1:40 p.m. CST. This tornado occurred in the absence of any lightning and rain, although there was a shower off to the east. By 4 p.m. CST, a couple of the showers strengthened into thunderstorms. Scattered thunderstorms actually started increasing in coverage after 6 p.m. CST as an approaching shortwave trough began influencing the region. Several storms produced at least quarter size hail over Clay, Hall, Hamilton, and Webster Counties. Larger hail did occur, with tennis ball size being the largest, reported near Giltner, in southwestern Hamilton County. Car windows were broken. Between 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. CST, storms formed into a southwest-northeast oriented line across Hall and Hamilton Counties, resulting in cell-training. This resulted in rainfall totals exceeding 2 inches over Grand Island, including 2.72 inches on the northeast side of the city. Some urban flash flooding occurred, with roads being closed due to flooded underpasses. Manhole covers were also removed in some locations. The thunderstorm activity had moved east and south of south central Nebraska by 11 p.m. CST.||A north-northeast to south-southwest oriented quasi-stationary front extended from the eastern Dakota's through western Kansas into New Mexico. A lee-side low was near Colorado Springs. In the upper levels broad southwest flow was over much of the United States, with a ridge over the Great Lakes, and an elongated trough from Hudson Bay to central California. A weak shortwave trough was passing over the Central Plains. When the first storms initiated, late in the afternoon, temperatures were in the middle 70s, with dewpoints in the lower 60s. MLCAPE was between 1500 and 2000 J/kg. Effective deep layer shear was 40 to 45 knots. This environment was more than supportive of organized, persistent storms.

A weak, non-supercell tornado occurred a few miles north of Juniata. A damage survey revealed no visible damage as the tornado moved across a field in a rural area. Several individuals in the area took pictures and videos of the tornado and this evidence was used to confirm the 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.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:29 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 Grand Island radar (KUEX), 36 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:37 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

4 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.