EF1 tornado, Spalding, Nebraska, May 12, 2023

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

May 12, 2023

Touchdown

2:25 PM CDT (19:25 UTC)

Lifted

2:42 PM CDT (19:42 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

13.6 miles (21.9 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$300,000

County

Greeley County

Touchdown point

41.608, -98.404

Lift-off point

41.740, -98.600

Record number

2305121325-01

14 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GID and NWS LBF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• Pushed metal poles to west and blew out windows on two vehicles.
• Lofted debris across the road. Some minor scouring of gravel from road.
• Partial loss of metal roof. Likely strong inflow winds
• Pivot flipped to the north

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

Intense upper level low pressure brings arc of severe thunderstorms to portions of south central Nebraska during the afternoon hours of May 12th. A closed upper low pressure system over SW Nebraska lead to the development of a broken arc of mini-supercells, beginning around 1300-1400CDT. While most of south central Nebraska was in the dry slot of the storm system during the daytime hours, far north and northeastern portions of the CWA remained in the warm sector long enough to develop sufficient instability for strong to severe thunderstorms. The intense nature of the upper low, combined with significantly backed low level winds (and thus high storm relative helicity) lead to development of several low topped supercells that arched from the Nebraska Sandhills, ESE to near Ord and Columbus. A few hail and wind damage reports were received with this activity, but by far the most attention-grabbing portion of the event was a tornado in Greeley County. Damage was very limited with this tornado as it tracked over primarily pasture land in central Greeley County. However, this tornado had high notoriety, regionally and nationally, due to it's highly photogenic nature (well defined tornado in foreground and blue skies in the background), as well as proximity to several well known storm chasers. This was a relatively short-lived event, overall, with all of the severe activity occurring between 1300-1700CDT.

This tornado developed out of a northwestward tracking supercell that was located within a band of supercells that were rotating around a strong low pressure system over central Nebraska. The tornado formed right around 2:25 PM CDT and tracked over open pasture and recently planted fields mainly hitting several pivots and tree lines as it tracked northwest. No homes were impacted by this tornado. The worst damage appeared to be the flipped pivots, snapped cedar trees, and finally damage to at least 2 parked vehicles at the intersection of Highway 91 and Highway 281. The windows were blown out on two vehicles that were parked at this location and two large metal electrical transmission poles were leaning, but still standing at this intersection. After hitting the Highway 91 and 281 intersection the tornado continued onto the northwest over open road-less country across far north central Greeley county where based on video and surveying, it was believed to have lifted just shy of the Greeley/Wheeler County line. The maximum wind gust was estimated to be 105 MPH.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:13 UTC and running to 21:31 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:19 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.

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 151 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:23 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 2023 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

32 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.