EF0 tornado, Fairmont, Nebraska, June 24, 2018

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

June 24, 2018

Touchdown

7:17 PM CDT (00:17 UTC)

Lifted

7:20 PM CDT (00:20 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Fillmore County

Touchdown point

40.596, -97.530

Lift-off point

40.594, -97.528

Record number

1806241817-01

10 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 65 mph.

• Start point porviding by local storm spotter.
• Approximate end point from storm spotter
• Location and time from storm spotter in the area.
• Approximate end location of landspout per spotter reports.

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

If not for several weak landspout tornadoes that touched down near Fairmont in Fillmore County on this Sunday evening, this would have been a relatively low-key weather day for South Central Nebraska, featuring mainly just locally heavy rainfall across various parts of the area. However, this cluster of four landspouts (all rated EF-0) generated plenty of attention between 7-8 p.m. CDT as they descended intermittently and mostly-harmlessly into farm fields a few miles southeast through southwest of Fairmont. They were highly-visible, with some sightings occurring from 20+ miles away, and were also well-documented on video by a storm chaser. The parent storm remained nearly stationary over parts of northern Fillmore County for almost three hours, promoting an unofficial report of 3.77 of rain in Exeter, along with short-term street flooding and a brief round of quarter size hail. While other storms developed along and near the same frontal boundary during the evening, the only other severe weather report consisted of estimated 60 MPH winds west of Gresham.||For the majority of South Central Nebraska, localized heavy rain was the primary issue during the 24-hour period between the afternoon of the 24th and the afternoon of the 25th, with many locations tallying 1-3, and a few spots higher. A few of the highest official totals from NWS and CoCoRaHS observers featured: 4.50 near Rockville, 4.32 near Genoa and 3.80 near Gresham. However, totals over 3 were certainly the exception within the area as a whole, and there were few known flooding impacts.||Taking a closer look at the meteorological background behind the Fillmore County landspouts, the mesoscale environment appeared at least modestly-supportive of such activity. In the big picture of the mid-upper levels, forcing/lift was increasing as a well-defined shortwave trough approached from the Central High Plains. In the lower-levels, the key feature/focus was a weak, northeast-southwest oriented cold front aligned from central Kansas to eastern Nebraska, which the Fillmore County storm developed directly on. While deep-layer shear was fairly weak (around 20 knots), mixed-layer CAPE averaged 1000-2000 J/kg, promoting vigorous updrafts. More importantly for landspout formation, mesoscale analysis revealed a modest overlap of 0-3 kilometer (low level) CAPE and surface vorticity provided by the weak boundary.

A weak tornado with a maximum wind speed of 60 mph occurred. The tornado was a landspout in nature, and was one of four to occur within a few miles of Fairmont.

A weak tornado with a maximum wind speed of 65 mph occurred. The tornado was a landspout in nature, and was one of four to occur within a few miles of Fairmont.

A weak tornado with a maximum wind speed of 60 mph occurred. The tornado was a landspout in nature, and was one of four to occur within a few miles of Fairmont.

A weak tornado occurred with a maximum wind speed of 65 mph. The tornado was a landspout in nature, and was one of four to occur within a few miles of Fairmont.

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 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.

York (JYR), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:17 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 2018 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

8 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.