EF2 tornado, Almeria, Nebraska, August 19, 2017

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

August 19, 2017

Touchdown

8:14 PM CDT (01:14 UTC)

Lifted

8:17 PM CDT (01:17 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

540 yards (494 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Loup County

Touchdown point

41.829, -99.581

Lift-off point

41.824, -99.585

Record number

1708191914-01

27 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LBF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• Large branches broken, trees uprooted, though the health of the uprooted trees was questionable
• Twisted evergreen with a debarked and uprooted juniper tree lying next to it that likely came from another location. There were also several 2X4 missiles and impailed tin wrapped up in the trees.
• healthy evergreen partially debarked and uprooted. Likely came from the windbreak across the road. Several missiles in the area.
• Dunbar ranch. Many trees delimbed and some debarked. Trees were in varied stages of health. Some of the debarked limbs were still healthy and pieces of bark found on the ground were showing no signs of rot. 100 year old plus tree line.

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

Thunderstorms initiated across north central Nebraska during the late afternoon hours of August 19th. As storms tracked to the southeast, they produced large hail, heavy rain and 5 tornadoes.

Tornado touched down and traveled approximately 2 miles to the south southeast. The tornado partially removed a roof off of a well built home. In addition, to the damaged roof, numerous power poles were snapped off along the tornado's path.

An outbuilding was flipped over and severe tree damage was reported along the tornado's path.

The tornado moved through a 100 year old shelter belt uprooting numerous trees. The tornado then passed through a recently vacated farmstead with several outbuildings. All of the outbuildings were completely destroyed. Sheet metal and wood from the outbuildings were found over a half a mile away. A boat parked at this location was destroyed and parts from the boat were found in a nearby field less than a mile away. Damage to the home was confined to the roof with debris from one of the outbuildings penetrating the attic of the home.

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

35 minutes of warning. NWS LBF issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:39 UTC, 35 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:49 UTC and running to 04:24 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. The outlook in force was issued at 01:06 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 North Platte radar (KLNX), 84 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:12 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 2017 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.