EF0 tornado, Platte Center to Tarnov, Nebraska, April 16, 2024

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

April 16, 2024

Touchdown

11:35 AM CDT (16:35 UTC)

Lifted

11:51 AM CDT (16:51 UTC)

On the ground

16 minutes

Path length

8.4 miles (13.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Platte County

Touchdown point

41.510, -97.550

Lift-off point

41.620, -97.470

Record number

2404161035-01

7 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 83 mph.

• Small open-door outbuilding was flipped upward. Another small outbuilding lost roof paneling. Other nearby buildings undamaged, and minimal tree damage next to the buildings, other than one large cedar tree which was split down the middle.
• Cattle shed rolled. Video from a farm one half mile away suggests that this is where the tornado began as the storm updraft to the west ingested rotation from a weak boundary.
• A detached garage experienced collapse of walls and uplift of the roof. The roof and some other debris were deposited 30 to 50 yards downstream. Other nearby small outbuildings were not damaged, and nearby trees experienced minimal damage. The house, located about 20 yards from the garage, was also largely untouched.
• Cattle shed overturned. Nearby trees experienced minimal damage. Tornado ended very near this location.

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

At midnight on the 16th, non-severe thunderstorms were ongoing across portions of northeast Nebraska and western Iowa. With these storms being rooted in a nearly stationary boundary co-located with the exit region of a low-level jet, this area saw prolonged periods of moderate to heavy rain. This resulted in isolated instances of flash flooding, especially for rural portions of western Wayne County where several roads were reported under water.||By 4 am, A round of strong to severe thunderstorms entered eastern Nebraska from the west and south. These storms were co-located with a tongue of enhanced instability and low-level shear as the surface low occluded in central Nebraska. Scattered instances of damaging wind and continued isolated flooding were reported through the early morning hours.||While the main round of thunderstorms continued east into Iowa and Missouri by late morning, continued redevelopment of thunderstorms persisted through the afternoon hours across portions of northeast Nebraska. This resulted from forcing for ascent and steep lapse rates associated with the cut-off low lingering in central Nebraska. Just before noon through the early afternoon hours on the 16th, the Omaha-Valley NWS received reports of funnel clouds and brief spin-up tornadoes associated with these storms. NWS damage surveys concluded that there were 4 EF-0 tornadoes, two in Platte County and two in Colfax County. Scattered showers and storms lingered across the area through the evening of the 16th as the low-pressure system weakened and slowly moved northeast into the upper Midwest.

This tornado track is based entirely on eyewitness reports as there was no damage indicated along the entirety of the intermittent track. Emergency management, storm spotters, and video evidence indicate that the tornado began approximately 3 miles southwest of Platte Center. it moved northeast where it crossed the Central Highway road a half mile east of 325th Avenue. From that point on, it became more intermittent, occasionally kicking up dust at the ground underneath the persistent funnel cloud. There were times, especially during the intermittent phase, when the ground-level circulation went through center pivot irrigation systems without tipping them over, which has stood as the basis for rating this as an EF-0 tornado. Video evidence suggests that it was approximately 50 yards wide at its maximum width.

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.

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:40 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), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:36 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 2024 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

30 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.