Unrated tornado, Axtell, Nebraska, July 1, 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 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

July 1, 2024

Touchdown

7:07 PM CDT (00:07 UTC)

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Kearney County

Touchdown point

40.435, -99.082

Lift-off point

40.435, -99.082

Record number

2407011807-01

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GID, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

• No damage could be found near where video confirmed tornado. Tornado lasted just under 1 minute.

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

An upper level trough was moving over Nebraska from the west. A warm front was present near the Kansas/Nebraska border. Warm, moist air was on the east side of the warm front with hot, drier conditions on the west side of the front. CAPE, wind shear, and instability were high along and to the south of the front. A surface trough was also across the area which enhanced atmospheric lift. ||Storms developed across northwest Kansas into southern Nebraska during the early to mid afternoon hours. These storms moved eastward into south central Nebraska during the early evening hours and one storm began impacting the local area by producing a 58 mph wind gust in Furnas County. This same storm ended up producing a tornado about 15 minutes later in Furnas County. This storm moved northeastward and produced another tornado in Kearney County over an hour later. Both tornadoes were rated an EFU due to lack of quality damage indicators in the area. The storms in the area produced severe wind gusts and ended with the strongest wind gust of the day of 78 mph in Fillmore County after 10 PM CDT.

This tornado was a brief touchdown reported by storm chasers and an off-duty NWS employee. No rating nor wind speed was assigned due to the lack of quality damage indicators in the area. The location was based off of video and photos.

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

9 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:58 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:01 UTC and running to 02:16 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 19:56 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.

Holdrege/Brewstr (HDE), 22 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), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:09 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

3 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.