Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2019

EF1 tornado, Hayes Center, Nebraska, August 29, 2019

Name: EF1 tornado, Hayes Center, Nebraska, August 29, 2019
Start: 2019-08-29T22:25:00.000Z
End: 2019-08-29T22:26:00.000Z
Location: Hayes Center, Nebraska

This EF1 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Hayes County on August 29, 2019, touching down at 5:25 PM CDT and reaching 20 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 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: August 29, 2019
Touchdown: 5:25 PM CDT (22:25 UTC)
Lifted: 5:26 PM CDT (22:26 UTC)
On the ground: 1 minutes
Path length: 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width: 20 yards (18 m)
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
County: Hayes County
Touchdown point: 40.560, -101.160
Lift-off point: 40.560, -101.160
Record number: 1908291625-01

The damage survey

7 damage points were recorded along this path by 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.

Estimated from photos and radar.

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

An isolated supercell developed across eastern Keith and Perkins counties and tracked southeastward.

Tornado was confirmed via storm survey.

An EF-0 tornado was confirmed 8 west of Hayes Center.

Tornado confirmed by radar and video.

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

The warnings

0 minutes of warning. NWS LBF issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:25 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:24 UTC and running to 00:41 UTC.

Issued (UTC)	Expired	Product	Office
20:24 UTC	00:41 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	LBF
21:43 UTC	22:30 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	LBF
22:25 UTC	22:45 UTC	Tornado Warning	LBF
22:27 UTC	23:15 UTC	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	LBF
22:45 UTC	23:00 UTC	Tornado 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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), 12:00Z

10.4 hours before the tornado, 79 km from the path. August 29, 2019.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.

Hodograph

The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.

Mixed-layer CAPE: 1814 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -209 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 640 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1671 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 32 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 38 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 20 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: -0.8
0-3 km lapse rate: 3.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 00:00Z

1.6 hours after it, 79 km from the path. August 30, 2019.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.

Hodograph

Mixed-layer CAPE: 2 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -517 J/kg
Surface CAPE: 106 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1633 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 43 kt
0-1 km bulk shear: 11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 79 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 470 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 14.8
0-3 km lapse rate: 5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 140 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:23 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
21:43 UTC	HAIL 1.5	10 S Wallace	Hayes, NE
21:48 UTC	HAIL 1	8 S Wallace	Lincoln, NE
21:52 UTC	TSTM WND GST 60	12 S Wallace	Hayes, NE
21:52 UTC	HAIL 1.25	12 S Wallace	Hayes, NE
22:20 UTC	FUNNEL CLOUD	6 Wsw Hayes Center	Hayes, NE	WELL DEFINED FUNNEL CLOUD VIA PHOTO.
22:25 UTC	TSTM WND GST 58	3 N Hayes Center	Hayes, NE	NE-MESO030
22:25 UTC	HAIL 1.75	2 N Hayes Center	Hayes, NE
22:25 UTC	TORNADO 1	8 Wnw Hayes Center	Hayes, NE	CORRECTS PREVIOUS TORNADO REPORT FROM 8 WNW HAYES CENTER. EF-1 TORNADO CONFIRMED VIA STORM SURVEY.
22:25 UTC	TORNADO 1	8 Wnw Hayes Center	Hayes, NE	EF-1 TORNADO CONFIRMED VIA STORM SURVEY.
22:30 UTC	TORNADO	8 W Hayes Center	Hayes, NE	EF-0 TORNADO CONFIRMED VIA STORM SURVEY.
22:37 UTC	TORNADO	9 Ene Hamlet	Hayes, NE	BRIEF ROPE TORNADO
22:40 UTC	TORNADO	7 Ssw Hayes Center	Hayes, NE
22:45 UTC	TORNADO	8 Ene Hamlet	Hayes, NE	EF-0 TORNADO CONFIRMED VIA RADAR AND VIDEO.
22:46 UTC	TORNADO	6 Ene Hamlet	Hayes, NE
22:50 UTC	TSTM WND GST 105	4 Wsw Palisade	Hitchcock, NE	STORM SURVEY BY NWS NORTH PLATTE CONFIRMS STRAIGHT LINE WIND DAMAGE TO A FARM SOUTHWEST OF PALISADE. A BARN WAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED, AS WELL AS TREES SNAPPED, TREE LIMBS DOWN, POWER POLES DOWN, AND CROPS DOWN.
22:55 UTC	TORNADO	4 E Palisade	Hitchcock, NE	REPORT OF FUNNEL CLOUD/POSSIBLE TORNADO AND ROTATION WITH THE STORM 1 MILE SOUTH AND 2 MILES WEST OF THE HAYES/HITCHCOCK COUNTY LINE NEAR OLD HWY 17.
22:55 UTC	HAIL 2	7 E Hamlet	Hayes, NE	WIND DRIVEN HAIL DAMAGED SIDING ON HOUSE. RELAYED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR
23:00 UTC	HAIL 1.75	Palisade	Hitchcock, NE	REPORT INCLUDED A PICTURE OF GOLF-BALL SIZE HAIL.
23:03 UTC	TSTM WND DMG	6 Se Palisade	Hitchcock, NE	TREE DAMAGE AND POWER LINES DOWN AT HWY 6 AND HWY 25.
23:10 UTC	TSTM WND DMG	2 Ene Trenton	Hitchcock, NE	DELAYED REPORT VIA FACEBOOK OF A ROOF RIPPED OFF A BARN NEAR TRENTON. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR.
23:10 UTC	TSTM WND DMG	6 Nw Trenton	Hitchcock, NE	POWER LINES DOWN 8 MILES SOUTH OF PALISADE. REPORT VIA TWITTER WITH A PICTURE.
23:11 UTC	HAIL 1.5	5 N Culbertson	Hitchcock, NE
23:15 UTC	TSTM WND DMG	6 Se Palisade	Hitchcock, NE	DELAYED REPORT...ROAD SIGN RIPPED OUT OF THE GROUND. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR.
23:19 UTC	TSTM WND GST 72	3 Wsw Culbertson	Hitchcock, NE
23:20 UTC	HAIL 1.25	5 Sse Culbertson	Hitchcock, NE
23:24 UTC	TSTM WND DMG	3 W Culbertson	Hitchcock, NE	REPORT VIA TWITTER WITH A PICTURE OF AN OVERTURNED PIVOT. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR.
23:24 UTC	TSTM WND GST 65	3 Wnw Trenton	Hitchcock, NE
23:24 UTC	HAIL 2	2 Wnw Culbertson	Hitchcock, NE	DELAYED REPORT VIA TWITTER SHOWING A PICTURE OF 2 INCH HAIL. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR.
23:25 UTC	HAIL 1.75	Culbertson	Hitchcock, NE
23:30 UTC	HAIL 1.75	Culbertson	Hitchcock, NE
23:45 UTC	TSTM WND DMG	7 S Culbertson	Hitchcock, NE	REPORT VIA TWITTER WITH A PICTURE OF A LARGE TREE DOWN.
23:45 UTC	HAIL 0.75	7 Sw Mccook	Red Willow, NE

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the track Every 2019 tornado in Nebraska Every tornado in Nebraska since 1950 Warnings in force in Nebraska now The forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 29, 2019

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Damage
August 29	5:30 PM CDT	EF0	Hayes, NE	1.3	20
August 29	5:45 PM CDT	EF0	Hayes, NE	0.1	20
August 29	9:23 PM EDT	EF0	Shiawassee, MI	2.5	125	$50,000

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.