Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2018
EF0 tornado, Madison, Nebraska, June 1, 2018
This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Madison County on June 1, 2018, touching down at 9:59 PM CDT and reaching 50 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.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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
- EF0
- Date
- June 1, 2018
- Touchdown
- 9:59 PM CDT (02:59 UTC)
- Lifted
- 10:00 PM CDT (03:00 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Madison County
- Touchdown point
- 41.830, -97.610
- Lift-off point
- 41.830, -97.608
- Record number
- 1806012059-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A strong upper-level storm system tracked from the northern Rockies into northern High Plains with an associated surface low developing east across the Dakotas. Thunderstorms developed during the late afternoon and evening hours from north-central into eastern Nebraska along a trailing cold front with storms organizing into a bow-echo complex which produced numerous severe wind gusts and wind damage over northeast Nebraska, as well as a brief tornado near Madison, NE.
A brief touchdown was reported.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
5 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:54 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:30 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:57 UTC and running to 03:05 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:57 UTC | 03:05 UTC | Tornado Watch | OAX |
| 02:14 UTC | 02:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OAX |
| 02:29 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OAX |
| 02:46 UTC | 03:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OAX |
| 02:54 UTC | 03:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | OAX |
| 03:00 UTC | 03:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OAX |
| 03:05 UTC | 04:25 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | OAX |
| 03:14 UTC | 03:25 UTC | Tornado Warning | OAX |
| 03:32 UTC | 04:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | OAX |
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 00:45 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), 00:00Z
3.0 hours before the tornado, 118 km from the path. June 2, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 839 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -325 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1176 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 2411 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 62 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 207 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.3 K/km
Omaha, NE (KOAX), 12:00Z
9.0 hours after it, 118 km from the path. June 2, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -89844 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1783 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 65 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -142 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -271 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
The radar
The Omaha radar (KOAX), 118 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:58 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02:15 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 3 E Clearwater | Antelope, NE | ROAD SIGNS BEING BLOWN DOWN. |
| 02:33 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Neligh | Antelope, NE | POWER LINES DOWN. POWER OUT IN NELIGH. |
| 02:39 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 2 N Meadow Grove | Madison, NE | |
| 02:53 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Newman Grove | Madison, NE | SOCIAL MEDIA PHOTOS OF DOWNED TREES LARGER THAN ONE FOOT IN DIAMETER. TIME ESTIMATED. |
| 02:59 UTC | TORNADO | 8 W Madison | Madison, NE | |
| 03:07 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Albion | Boone, NE | SMALL TREES AND LIMBS DOWN IN ALBION. SCATTERED POWER OUTAGES IN BOONE COUNTY. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR. |
| 03:12 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 W Lindsay | Platte, NE | TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN. |
| 03:15 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | Lindsay | Platte, NE | |
| 03:18 UTC | TSTM WND GST 58 | 3 Ssw Norfolk | Madison, NE | |
| 03:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Tarnov | Platte, NE | POWER LINES DOWN. |
| 03:27 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 4 Wnw Columbus | Platte, NE | |
| 03:34 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | Stanton | Stanton, NE | |
| 03:35 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 4 Se Creston | Platte, NE | |
| 03:39 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 3 Wnw Columbus | Platte, NE | TREE LIMBS ALSO BEING BLOWN DOWN. |
| 03:42 UTC | TSTM WND GST 61 | 1 Ne Columbus | Platte, NE | |
| 03:43 UTC | TSTM WND GST 63 | Columbus | Platte, NE | |
| 03:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Nw Columbus | Platte, NE | NUMEROUS TREES DOWN ACROSS THE CITY, POWER LINES DOWN, TRAMPOLINES WRAPPED AROUND POWER POLES. |
| 03:47 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 1 Sw Duncan | Platte, NE | |
| 03:49 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 Ene Duncan | Platte, NE | SEMI TRUCK OVERTURNED. |
| 03:53 UTC | TSTM WND GST 80 | 3 Ene Duncan | Platte, NE | |
| 03:56 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | Stanton | Stanton, NE | |
| 03:58 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Clarkson | Colfax, NE | POWER LINES DOWN. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2018 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 1, 2018
14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 1 | 12:11 PM MDT | EF2 | Washakie, WY | 1.0 | 300 | $20,000 | ||
| June 1 | 12:16 PM MDT | EF2 | Johnson, WY | 1.0 | 300 | |||
| June 1 | 1:34 PM MDT | EF0 | Campbell, WY | 1.0 | 25 | |||
| June 1 | 1:41 PM MDT | EF3 | Campbell, WY | 3.8 | 200 | 2 | ||
| June 1 | 1:55 PM MDT | EF1 | Campbell, WY | 0.5 | 25 | $50,000 | ||
| June 1 | 1:59 PM MDT | EF1 | Campbell, WY | 4.6 | 50 | |||
| June 1 | 4:26 PM MDT | EF0 | Dunn, ND | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| June 1 | 4:34 PM MDT | EF2 | Dunn, ND | 3.5 | 200 | $175,000 | ||
| June 1 | 5:53 PM CDT | EF0 | Morton, ND | 7.3 | 100 | $5,000 | ||
| June 1 | 5:55 PM CDT | EF0 | McKenzie, ND | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| June 1 | 6:25 PM CDT | EF0 | Mercer, ND | 1.4 | 75 | |||
| June 1 | 7:36 PM CDT | EF0 | Walworth, SD | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| June 1 | 8:43 PM CDT | Unrated | Kent, TX | 0.0 | 30 | |||
| June 1 | 9:14 PM CDT | EF0 | Valley, NE | 0.0 | 40 |
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.