EF1 tornado, (Ofk)Stefan Fld Norf to Stanton, Nebraska, April 26, 2024

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

April 26, 2024

Touchdown

5:16 PM CDT (22:16 UTC)

Lifted

5:19 PM CDT (22:19 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Stanton and Madison counties

Touchdown point

41.989, -97.370

Lift-off point

41.999, -97.367

Record number

2404261616-01

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

• Debris impailed into siding

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

On the morning of April 26th, a potent negatively-tilted shortwave trough ejected out into the central Plains. Upper air analysis shows a jet streak on the downstream side of this trough with substantial divergence aloft over Nebraska. At the surface, morning cloud cover and drizzle across much of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa quickly gave way to partly cloud skies as a warm front moved north through the area, just after noon. At the same time, thunderstorms initiated along a pacific front/dryline in south-central Nebraska. One supercell produced several tornadoes from south-central Nebraska into Boone County, resulting in an EF-2 tornado just west of Cedar Rapids. A second round of supercells initiated in Jefferson and Saline counties. These long-track supercells produced the worst tornado outbreak the Omaha WFO has seen in 10 years. 5 EF-3 tornadoes were surveyed, with several of these tornadoes just shy of an EF-4 rating. One of these EF-3 tornadoes impacted the northeast side of Lincoln, Nebraska where 70 people were reported trapped in a manufacturing plant that collapsed as the tornado passed. Another long-track EF-3 tornado hit portions of Elkhorn, Bennington and Blair, Nebraska. Eppley Airfield was hit by the third EF-3 tornado of the day, doing damage to aircraft hangars on the southeast side of the airport before hitting homes in far western Pottawattamie County. The last two EF-3 tornadoes of the day both impacted portions of Pottawattamie County. While one remained primarily in rural areas in the central part of the county, the final EF-3 of the day hit the town of Minden, Iowa head-on, resulting in 1 fatality and 3 injuries. This was the only fatality of the entire event. This tornado continued into Shelby County, narrowly missing the towns of Tenant and Harlan. A total of 24 tornadoes were confirmed across both Nebraska and Iowa portions of the Omaha CWA. The strongest tornado was the EF-3 that impacted Elkhorn and Blair, with peak estimated wind speeds at 165 miles per hour.||Along the warm front the day prior, scattered thunderstorms developed along the Kansas-Nebraska border during the evening hours. Most of these storms were sub-severe, however, one thunderstorm produced severe hail in and north of Odell, Nebraska for around ten minutes just before 9 pm CDT.

This tornado began just southwest of the East Sherwood Road and 558th Avenue intersection. A few branches were noted to have been broken just south of East Sherwood Road before the tornado crossed 558th Avenue into Stanton County. The tornado continued for another half a mile on the east side of 558th Avenue in Stanton County producing EF-1 damage to trees and a warehouse building. The peak windspeeds from the tornado in Madison County were estimated to be at 60 miles per hour, with the average width of the tornado being at 25 yards.

This tornado touched down just on the Madison side of the Madison-Stanton County line before crossing into Stanton County less than a mile north of the East Sherwood Road and 558th Avenue intersection. Right as it crossed the county line, it hit a warehouse, blowing off the majority of its roof and blowing in a garage door. Nearby trees just to the south of the warehouse were snapped near the base of their trunks. This tornado continued north-northeast for another half a mile before dissipating. The maximum estimated wind speed from this tornado in Stanton County was 103 miles per hour, and the average width was estimated to be 50 yards.

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 17:53 UTC and running to 23:28 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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.

Norfolk (OFK), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 112 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:18 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

77 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 78 of them

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.