Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2019
EF0 tornado, Hayes Center, Nebraska, August 29, 2019
This EF0 tornado ran 1.3 miles across Hayes County on August 29, 2019, touching down at 5:30 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 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
- August 29, 2019
- Touchdown
- 5:30 PM CDT (22:30 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:35 PM CDT (22:35 UTC)
- On the ground
- 5 minutes
- Path length
- 1.3 miles (2.1 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Hayes County
- Touchdown point
- 40.510, -101.175
- Lift-off point
- 40.495, -101.173
- Record number
- 1908291630-01
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
5 minutes of warning. NWS LBF issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:25 UTC, 5 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
10.5 hours before the tornado, 85 km from the path. August 29, 2019.
- 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
N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), 00:00Z
1.5 hours after it, 85 km from the path. August 30, 2019.
- 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
The radar
The Goodland radar (KGLD), 134 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:27 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 | |
| 23:32 UTC | HAIL 1 | 10 Sse Culbertson | Red Willow, 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 trackEvery 2019 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of August 29, 2019
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.