Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2019
Unrated tornado, Dawson, Nebraska, May 21, 2019
This Unrated tornado ran 0.0 miles across Richardson County on May 21, 2019, touching down at 7:31 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 mph
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.
Unratedthis tornado
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
- Unrated
- Date
- May 21, 2019
- Touchdown
- 7:31 PM CDT (00:31 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:32 PM CDT (00:32 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.0 miles (0.0 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Richardson County
- Touchdown point
- 40.059, -95.829
- Lift-off point
- 40.059, -95.828
- Record number
- 1905211831-01
The damage survey
17 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OAX and NWS TOP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 142 mph.
- Emergency manager reported the electrical pole was snapped. Can also see the track in the field.
- Brick porch collapsed, not reenforced with rebar but filled with concrete.
- Northeast portion of the home. Sitting room off the main portion of the home.
- tops of trees broken 1/2 mile north of 720 road.
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 warm front moving northward through the region triggered a cluster of severe thunderstorms across southeast Nebraska and southwest IA during the evening of May 21 and early in the morning on May 22. Two brief EF0 tornado touchdowns were reported in southeast Nebraska.
A storm chaser videoed a brief touched down near NE Highway 8 south of Dawson.
Storm chasers and a sheriff deputy collected video of a small tornado that moved north-northeast in open fields south of Dawson, NE. No discernible damage was noted from this tornado.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
What forecasters said that day
The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Omaha, NE wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at May 21, 7:23 PM CDT, 8 minutes earlier.
Area forecast discussion, May 21, 7:23 PM CDT, 8 minutes before
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Omaha/Valley NE 723 PM CDT Tue May 21 2019 .SHORT TERM...(Tonight through Friday) Issued at 350 PM CDT Tue May 21 2019 WV imagery this afternoon showing a longwave trough with embedded circulations...one currently lifting into SW KS and the other centered over the Pacific NW. Surface reflection of the former was centered over SW KS. Meanwhile 88D mosaic was showing a large area of precip over WRN SD/NE panhandle/NW KS with another area over MO streaming northward into IA. For tonight, precip will be gradually diminishing from south to north overnight as the upper low lifts out of western KS this evening and into the Dakotas by early Wednesday morning. CAMs do suggest a few cells lifting out of KS into the southern CWA this evening, but given excessive cloud cover/nil diurnal heating, chances are very low any will turn severe. On Wednesday, dry and warmer in part to southwest winds and increased mixing by afternoon. Wednesday night models prog low level baroclinic zone setting up from northern MO into central KS with precip developing along the boundary. The boundary/precip activity is progged to slowly lift northward and expand across the CWA on Thursday. Both the NAM and GFS suggest environmental moisture content will be high with PW approaching 2 inches by Thursday night. Given strong differential divergence coupled with stout 315K isentropic upglide and favorable precip efficiency/deep warm cloud layer, conditions will be quite favorable for an excessive rainfall event. Dry then the majority of the CWA on Friday. Portions of southwest IA and southwest NE though may see some lingering activity mainly in the morning hours. A gradual warming trend on tap the next few days. Expect highs in the mid/upper 60s on Wednesday with mid 60s/low 70s Thursday. On Friday, highs will top out in the mid/upper 70s. .LONG TERM...(Friday night through Tuesday) Issued at 350 PM CDT Tue May 21 2019 GFS and ECM in agreement precip chances continue through the weekend into early next week. Flow aloft turns near zonal keeping a surface boundary meandering through and close to the CWA and the focus for additional rainfall accumulation. Warm conditions continue with highs on Thursday in the mid/upper 80s and mid 80s on Friday. Cooling trend takes place over the weekend with mid/upper 70s on Saturday and mid 60s/low 70s Sunday. && .AVIATION...(For the 00Z TAFS through 00Z Wednesday evening) Issued at 716 PM CDT Tue May 21 2019 Strong TSRA beginning to lift out of NE KS into ERN NE. Expect convective activity to continue over the next couple hours and move across all TAF sites. Storms should be weakening then toward midnight with generally VCSH over the area. Likely that IFR conditions will prevail at KOFK at least through early Wednesday morning. KOMA/KLNK though should be improving to VFR shortly after midnight. && .OAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... NE...None. IA...None. && SHORT TERM...DEE LONG TERM...DEE AVIATION...DEE
The surface observations
Falls City/Brenn (FNB), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Topeka radar (KTWX), 123 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:29 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.
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 May 21, 2019
30 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 21 | 3:45 AM CDT | EF1 | McClain, OK | 3.8 | 250 | $31,000 | ||
| May 21 | 3:57 AM CDT | EF1 | Cleveland, OK | 4.1 | 50 | $6,000 | ||
| May 21 | 4:13 AM CDT | EF0 | Cleveland, OK | 0.3 | 20 | $3,000 | ||
| May 21 | 4:22 AM CDT | EF1 | Cleveland, OK | 1.4 | 30 | |||
| May 21 | 4:33 AM CDT | EF2 | Pottawatomie, OK | 2.6 | 150 | |||
| May 21 | 4:50 AM CDT | EF0 | Lincoln, OK | 2.3 | 30 | $7,000 | ||
| May 21 | 6:08 AM CDT | EF1 | Creek, OK | 1.6 | 75 | |||
| May 21 | 6:25 AM CDT | Unrated | Marshall, OK | 0.5 | 20 | |||
| May 21 | 6:29 AM CDT | EF0 | Tulsa, OK | 0.4 | 75 | |||
| May 21 | 6:31 AM CDT | EF1 | Tulsa, OK | 2.3 | 550 | 1 | $125,000 | |
| May 21 | 6:37 AM CDT | EF1 | Tulsa, OK | 0.7 | 75 | |||
| May 21 | 6:48 AM CDT | EF0 | Tulsa, OK | 0.6 | 100 | |||
| May 21 | 7:03 AM CDT | EF1 | Atoka, OK | 1.6 | 100 | $7,000 | ||
| May 21 | 1:06 PM CDT | EF0 | Greene, MO | 1.2 | 100 | $41,000 | ||
| May 21 | 2:48 PM CDT | EF1 | Webster, MO | 7.1 | 100 | $35,000 | ||
| May 21 | 3:17 PM CDT | EF1 | Wright, MO | 23.8 | 200 | $5.0 million | ||
| May 21 | 4:18 PM CDT | EF1 | Phelps, MO | 5.9 | 800 | |||
| May 21 | 4:32 PM CDT | EF1 | Dickinson, KS | 7.5 | 100 | |||
| May 21 | 4:50 PM CDT | EF0 | Rooks, KS | 0.2 | 50 | |||
| May 21 | 4:52 PM CDT | Unrated | Dickinson, KS | 17.7 | 150 | |||
| May 21 | 5:05 PM CDT | EF1 | Callaway, MO | 0.6 | 250 | |||
| May 21 | 5:58 PM CDT | EF1 | Franklin, MO | 5.9 | 250 | |||
| May 21 | 6:10 PM CDT | EF0 | Shawnee, KS | 12.6 | 50 | |||
| May 21 | 6:38 PM CDT | EF2 | Jackson, KS | 17.1 | 75 | |||
| May 21 | 7:01 PM CDT | EF0 | Monroe, IL | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| May 21 | 7:06 PM CDT | EF0 | Nemaha, KS | 3.0 | 50 | |||
| May 21 | 7:08 PM CDT | EF1 | Atchison, KS | 5.4 | 30 | |||
| May 21 | 7:20 PM CDT | EF3 | Nemaha, KS | 5.9 | 300 | |||
| May 21 | 7:43 PM CDT | Unrated | Richardson, NE | 1.7 | 50 | |||
| May 21 | 7:55 PM CDT | EF0 | Nemaha, NE | 0.8 | 50 |
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.