EF0 tornado, Silver Creek, Nebraska, July 8, 2020

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

July 8, 2020

Touchdown

11:29 PM CDT (04:29 UTC)

Lifted

11:36 PM CDT (04:36 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

4.2 miles (6.8 km)

Path width

130 yards (119 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Merrick County

Touchdown point

41.330, -97.700

Lift-off point

41.340, -97.620

Record number

2007082229-01

14 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 80 mph.

• No obvious house damage. Some debris from places to the west. Tree damage
• Significant tree damage in cottonwood groove. Widest portion of path.
• Tree damage. Couple small outbuildings (feeder-type)
• Several trees uprooted or broken

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

Extensive line of thunderstorms brought widespread severe wind to much of south central Nebraska and portions of north central Kansas on this date. This event will likely go down as the most widespread severe weather event of the spring and summer of 2020 for the Hastings County Warning Area (CWA). Thunderstorms developed along a cold front across north central Nebraska, and also within a zone of low level upslope flow over western Nebraska and northeast Colorado, during the early evening hours of July 8th. Both areas of development initially contained both line segments and embedded supercells, posing risks for all severe hazards, but quickly organized into two separate lines of convection, or quasi linear convective systems (QLCSs). By 9pm CDT, one line extended roughly west to east from Thedford, NE to O'Neill, NE and was moving southeast, while the other line extended roughly north to south from near Thedford, NE to just west of McCook, NE and was moving mainly east. Shortly thereafter, both lines began to merge together into one coherent line. Thunderstorms began to enter far northern and western portions of the CWA around 10pm CDT. By this time, thunderstorms already had a history of producing 60 to 75 mph wind gusts and a few instances of large hail just northwest and west of the CWA. The line of thunderstorms strengthened and organized further as they shifted southeast into the CWA between 10-11pm CDT. In fact, an impressive bow echo developed over Gosper and Furnas Counties during this time and raced eastward, affecting areas primarily between Interstate 80 in south central Nebraska and Highway 36 in north central Kansas. Severe wind gusts remained the primary threat. The QLCS had taken on an ���S��� shape by 11pm CDT, slanting southwest to northeast. The greatest concentration of severe wind reports occurred over central and eastern portions of the CWA, roughly from Grand Island and Hastings eastward to York and Hebron, between 11pm CDT on July 8th and 1am CDT on July 9th as forward speed increased dramatically. Several wind gusts were measured between 70-75mph in this area, including a peak wind gust of 75mph in Thayer County. Not surprisingly, widespread wind damage was reported, as well, especially to trees, power lines, and crops. Downed tree limbs (medium to large size) and snapped small trees were fairly common. Power outages were also common across many small towns during the overnight and into the early morning hours, though an exact estimation of peak power outages is unknown. A few buildings also sustained damage, such as blown in doors and roof damage from fallen trees and lost shingles. Finally, a brief EF-0 tornado was determined to have occurred in Merrick County, with peak winds estimated to be around 85mph. Damage was limited. The leading edge of the QLCS, and associated peak wind threat, shifted east and southeast of the CWA by 1AM CDT, though lingering stratiform rain as well as a northwest to southeast band of thunderstorms near the state line continued for a few more hours. The only severe hail reported with this event was along the southwest flank of the QLCS over Furnas County, where thunderstorms continued to regenerate. A few instances of quarter to golf ball size hail was reported.||Meteorologically speaking, this severe wind event was driven largely by a cold front interacting with a strongly unstable airmass due to steep mid level lapse rates, strong heating, and moist boundary layer. Initially cellular activity quickly grew upscale into line segments owing to the linear forcing along the cold front and generally outflow dominated activity, with peak DCAPE values in excess of 1500 J/kg. The primary shortwave trough responsible for the cold front remained well north of the area, near the Montana/Canadian border, but several weak perturbations moving west to east over the cold front likely aided in thunderstorm development as well. A distinct mesoscale convective vortex, modest deep layer shear of 30-35 knots, and an intensifying southerly low level jet up to 45 knots sustained the severe convection well past sunset. Finally, it's worth noting that an impressive surface pressure rise/fall couplet of at least 3mb/2hr accompanied the QLCS across the CWA between 05Z and 07Z.

Region 44 Emergency Management assisted with this survey. A brief tornado touched down north of Silver Creek, with a path length of approximately 4 miles and maximum wind gusts estimated to be 85 MPH. Damage was primarily confined to trees, with downed large branches and some uprooted trees. Irrigation pivots along and near the path were overturned. Two farmsteads were affected, one sustained minor damage to a small outbuilding and the other sustained tree damage.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:46 UTC and running to 07:18 UTC.

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 Enhanced Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:38 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.

Columbus Municipal (OLU), 29 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 108 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:30 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 2020 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

17 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.