Tornadoes · United States · Nebraska · 2021

Unrated tornado, Trenton Arpt, Nebraska, March 14, 2021

This Unrated tornado ran 0.4 miles across Hitchcock County on March 14, 2021, touching down at 2:33 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.

  1. EF065 to 85 mph

    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. 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
March 14, 2021
Touchdown
2:33 PM CDT (19:33 UTC)
Lifted
2:37 PM CDT (19:37 UTC)
On the ground
4 minutes
Path length
0.4 miles (0.7 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Hitchcock County
Touchdown point
40.167, -101.050
Lift-off point
40.173, -101.054
Record number
2103141333-01

What the Weather Service recorded

During the afternoon hours of March 14th, showers and thunderstorms developed in a line across southwest Nebraska. This resulted in a brief landspout tornado near Trenton Dam.||During the overnight hours damaging winds accompanied a shower moving north over Red Willow County. These winds destroyed a three sided shed and blew some shingles off a house and garage nearby.

Social media report and photo of a landspout tornado. The landspout was spotted on the east side of Trenton Dam and dissipated near the southwest edge of Trenton. The tornado lasted for four to five minutes. Key impacts: tornado.

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

The warnings

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:22 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

7.6 hours before the tornado, 113 km from the path. March 14, 2021.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 12:00Z on 2021-03-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 6 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 470 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
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.
HodographHodograph, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 12:00Z on 2021-03-14The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 282 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 63 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
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
6 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
5 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
470 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
63 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
32 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
282 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
315 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
2.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

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

4.4 hours after it, 113 km from the path. March 15, 2021.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 00:00Z on 2021-03-15Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 561 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
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.
HodographHodograph, N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE at 00:00Z on 2021-03-15The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 117 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 53 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
16 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
561 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
53 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
12 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
117 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
67 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:33 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
16:34 UTCHEAVY RAIN 2.63 N BenkelmanDundy, NE
19:10 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD5 S StrattonHitchcock, NEMULTIPLE REPORTS OF A POSSIBLE FUNNEL CLOUD SOMEWHERE BETWEEN FIVE AND TEN MILES SOUTH OF STRATTON.
19:10 UTCHAIL 0.256 N TrentonHitchcock, NEDELAYED SOCIAL MEDIA REPORT OF PEA SIZED HAIL LASTING ABOUT TEN MINUTES.
19:32 UTCHAIL 0.5TrentonHitchcock, NESOCIAL MEDIA REPORT OF HALF INCH HAIL ONGOING IN TRENTON.
19:33 UTCTORNADO2 W TrentonHitchcock, NESOCIAL MEDIA REPORT AND PHOTO OF A LANDSPOUT. LANDSPOUT WAS SPOTTED ON THE EAST SIDE OF TRENTON DAM AND DISSIPATED NEAR THE SOUTHWEST EDGE OF TRENTON. ON THE GROUND FOR FOUR TO FIVE MINUTES.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2021 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of March 14, 2021

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 1412:50 PM CDTUnratedCheyenne, KS0.125

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.