Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2017
EF1 tornado, Antioch, Nebraska, June 12, 2017
This EF1 tornado ran 9.2 miles across Sheridan County on June 12, 2017, touching down at 8:30 PM MDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $21,000 of property damage.
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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- June 12, 2017
- Touchdown
- 8:30 PM MDT (02:30 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:35 PM MDT (02:35 UTC)
- On the ground
- 5 minutes
- Path length
- 9.2 miles (14.8 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $21,000
- County
- Sheridan County
- Touchdown point
- 42.080, -102.670
- Lift-off point
- 42.080, -102.670
- Record number
- 1706122030-01
The damage survey
6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CYS and NWS LBF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.
- Barn was old and near collapse according to owner
- Doors were blown 500 yards
- Power company replaced 30 wood poles at this location. Some poles were snapped with conductors missing.
- Roof tore off a warehouse at the Alliance Airport
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A closed upper low across the central Rockies, combined with a stationary front draped across the area, brought a round of strong to severe thunderstorms across northwest Nebraska.
Witnesses describe a tornado touching down and destroying mainly cottonwood trees in wind breaks. The path was not continuous. The tornado lifted and then continued to the northeast, hitting a homestead, damaging old outbuildings and snapping or pushing over 30 wooden power poles. Same tornado / track as the other LSRs.
Witnesses describe a tornado touching down and destroying mainly cottonwood trees in wind breaks. The path was not continuous. The tornado lifted and then continued to the northeast, hitting a homestead, damaging old outbuildings and snapping or pushing over 30 wooden power poles. Final damage point from Antioch tornado.
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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:35 UTC and running to 06:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:35 UTC | 06:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | LBF |
| 00:57 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 01:43 UTC | 02:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 02:00 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Flood Advisory | LBF |
| 02:09 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 02:17 UTC | 03:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 02:25 UTC | 02:54 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 02:37 UTC | 03:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
| 03:04 UTC | 03:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
| 03:12 UTC | 04:15 UTC | Flood Advisory | LBF |
| 03:18 UTC | 04:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
| 03:44 UTC | 04:08 UTC | Tornado Warning | LBF |
| 03:54 UTC | 04:31 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LBF |
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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:03 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.
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 00:00Z
2.5 hours before the tornado, 202 km from the path. June 13, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1352 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -142 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3286 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2089 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 14 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 65 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 194 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 6.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.5 K/km
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 12:00Z
9.5 hours after it, 202 km from the path. June 13, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1212 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -415 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1745 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1146 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 32 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 100 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.3 K/km
The radar
The North Platte radar (KLNX), 173 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:30 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 Nne Bayard | Morrill, NE | TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN. TIME BASED ON RADAR. |
| 01:15 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Nne Bayard | Morrill, NE | TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN. HOUSES SEVERELY DAMAGED. A STORAGE SHED AND TRACTOR WERE SWEPT AWAY. POWER LINES SNAPPED. TIME BASED ON RADAR. |
| 01:15 UTC | TORNADO | 4 Nne Bayard | Morrill, NE | TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN. TIME BASED ON RADAR. |
| 01:15 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | 13 S Hay Springs | Sheridan, NE | |
| 02:00 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 5 Nne Bonner | Morrill, NE | NEAR THE MORRILL-BOX BUTTE COUNTY LINE. |
| 02:10 UTC | HAIL 1 | Alliance | Box Butte, NE | KANSAS ST IN ALLIANCE. |
| 02:15 UTC | HAIL 2.75 | Alliance | Box Butte, NE | |
| 02:15 UTC | TORNADO | 8 S Alliance | Morrill, NE | POSSIBLE TORNADO. A BUSINESS LOST HALF ITS ROOF. WINDOWS AND DOORS WERE BLOWN IN. |
| 02:18 UTC | HAIL 2.5 | Alliance | Box Butte, NE | REPORT RECEIVED VIA FACEBOOK. |
| 02:22 UTC | TORNADO | 13 S Alliance | Morrill, NE | 65 TRAIN CARS BLOWN OVER. |
| 02:25 UTC | HAIL 2.75 | 3 Wnw Antioch | Sheridan, NE | VERY LARGE HAIL, PERHAPS BASEBALL SIZE, WAS HEARD HITTING THE HOUSE. THE TIME IS ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 02:30 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Wnw Antioch | Sheridan, NE | A LARGE COTTONWOOD TREE WAS SNAPPED, TWISTED,BROKEN AND SPREAD AROUND THE RANCH YARD. A STACK OF LUMBER WAS LIFTED UP AND TOSSED AROUND THE YARD. THE TIME OF THE REPORT WAS ESTIMATED BY RADAR. |
| 02:40 UTC | TORNADO | 4 N Antioch | Sheridan, NE | A TORNADO REPORTED 4 MILES NORTH OF ANTIOCH. POWER LINES WERE ALSO REPORTED TO BE DOWNED NEAR THE LOCATION. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2017 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 12, 2017
20 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 12 | 3:55 PM MDT | Unrated | Goshen, WY | 23.2 | 40 | |||
| June 12 | 4:40 PM MDT | EF0 | Laramie, WY to CO | 2.8 | 80 | |||
| June 12 | 5:40 PM CDT | EF2 | Weld, CO to WY | 15.0 | 300 | |||
| June 12 | 4:49 PM MDT | EF1 | Converse, WY | 0.5 | 25 | |||
| June 12 | 5:05 PM MDT | EF1 | Laramie, WY | 1.5 | 80 | |||
| June 12 | 6:09 PM CDT | EF2 | Goshen, WY to NE | 25.6 | 500 | 2 | $603,000 | |
| June 12 | 5:30 PM MDT | EF2 | Johnson, WY | 1.6 | 250 | $10,000 | ||
| June 12 | 5:50 PM MDT | EF0 | Park, WY | 0.7 | 25 | |||
| June 12 | 6:01 PM MDT | EF1 | Kimball, NE | 1.0 | 80 | |||
| June 12 | 6:12 PM MDT | Unrated | Banner, NE | 0.7 | 25 | |||
| June 12 | 6:14 PM MDT | EF0 | Big Horn, WY | 3.1 | 30 | |||
| June 12 | 7:21 PM CDT | EF0 | Fond du Lac, WI | 2.1 | 50 | $7,000 | ||
| June 12 | 6:30 PM MDT | EF1 | Banner, NE | 4.2 | 100 | $25,000 | ||
| June 12 | 6:33 PM MDT | Unrated | Dawes, NE | 1.1 | 25 | |||
| June 12 | 6:36 PM MDT | EF0 | Natrona, WY | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| June 12 | 7:13 PM MDT | EF1 | Morrill, NE | 0.2 | 50 | |||
| June 12 | 7:19 PM MDT | EF2 | Morrill, NE | 31.6 | 300 | $3.5 million | ||
| June 12 | 8:40 PM MDT | EF1 | Sheridan, NE | 9.2 | 10 | $21,000 | ||
| June 12 | 9:10 PM MDT | EF0 | Bennett, SD | 0.0 | 7 | |||
| June 12 | 10:40 PM MDT | EF1 | Sheridan, NE | 9.2 | 10 | $21,000 |
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.