EF0 tornado, Cowles, 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

2:28 AM CDT (07:28 UTC)

Lifted

2:29 AM CDT (07:29 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Webster County

Touchdown point

40.204, -98.526

Lift-off point

40.214, -98.518

Record number

2404160128-01

2 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 65 mph.

• Some corn stalk debris on road and in fence line. Near radar CC and storm relative velocity signatures.
• Tree damage on east side of Highway 281. Location near the CC and storm relative velocity signatures.

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

A closed upper low/trough was over the Central Plains, which brought an increase in atmospheric lift. Moisture and instability increased across the area during the afternoon of the previous day. Wind shear and helicity increased after sunset. As the low moved northeast over Kansas and Nebraska, a cold front with gusty northwest winds moved into the area during the day on April 16th. These conditions were conducive to the development of severe weather. Strong to severe storms in the form of a QLCS moved northeastward into south central and central Nebraska during the early morning hours of April 16th. The storms produced hail up to the size of half dollars, wind gusts up to 78 mph, and one EF-0 tornado (in Webster County). These storms began with half dollar size hail just before 1 AM CDT in Furnas County and ended with a round of storms producing half dollar size hail in York County before 7:30 AM CDT. There were some reports of high wind, not associated with thunderstorms, from just before 3 AM to just after 1 PM CDT.

This brief, less than one mile long tornado traversed open country before crossing Highway 281 a couple of miles north of the Cowles/Highway 281 intersection. Corn stalks were strewn about and minor tree damage was noted. The path was based on a combination of damage indicators in the field and radar Correlation Coefficient signatures.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 07:02 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 01:08 UTC and running to 09:01 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:38 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.

Hastings (HSI), 45 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), 14 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:25 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.