Unrated tornado, Clay Center, Nebraska, May 5, 2021

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.

Rating

Unrated

Date

May 5, 2021

Touchdown

4:30 PM CDT (21:30 UTC)

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Clay County

Touchdown point

40.470, -98.020

Lift-off point

40.470, -98.020

Record number

2105051530-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GID, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry.

• Location/Time determined from reports, photos and video. EFU due to unknown damage (or no damage).

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

A swift moving cold front brought a brief bout of strong storms to south central Nebraska during the afternoon hours on May 5th. Thunderstorms developed along the cold front from SW to NE, generally along a line from Franklin County to Nance County around 3pm, and moved SE. Most of this activity was fairly weak and poorly organized. However, shortly before 4pm CDT, a stronger storm developed over Clay County and managed to produce nickel size hail and a brief landspout tornado. This became the second event in only a few days where landspout tornadoes were reported in this general area of south central Nebraska. No damage or impacts from the landspout were reported, so it was given an EFU rating. The line of thunderstorms continued SE with no additional severe reports, and exited the area around 6pm CDT.

This landspout tornado briefly touched down 4 miles south-southeast of Clay Center.

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.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 21:07 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.

Hastings (HSI), 38 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 39 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:26 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 2021 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.