EF0 tornado, Dorchester, Nebraska, July 1, 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

July 1, 2024

Touchdown

10:46 PM CDT (03:46 UTC)

Lifted

10:47 PM CDT (03:47 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

80 yards (73 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Saline County

Touchdown point

40.604, -97.182

Lift-off point

40.605, -97.177

Record number

2407012146-01

At the beginning of July, river flooding was still ongoing along portions of the Missouri River extending from east-central Nebraska/southwest Iowa to the southern Nebraska border. Most of the length of the river crested at the end of June, so the greatest impacts are addressed in June StormData. However, sections of I-29 and the I-29/I680 junction remained closed through the first week of July as flood waters receded. There were also riverfront properties in far southeast Nebraska that were flooded this first week of July as well.||On the morning of July 1st, a trough positioned over the Rockies ejected out into the central Plains. At the surface, a low pressure developed in the central High Plains in response to this upper level feature, with a quasi-stationary warm front draped from central Nebraska southeast into the lower Mississippi River Valley. Widespread showers and thunderstorms developed along and north of this frontal zone by the evening hours, resulting in widespread heavy rain across much of southeast Nebraska into southwest Iowa. Sporadic severe weather also occurred, primarily focused in Lincoln and surrounding areas. This included an EF-0 in Saline County and an EF-1 just southwest of Lincoln. Training thunderstorms produced flash flooding across much of the I-80 corridor between Lincoln and Omaha. A Flash Flood Emergency was issued for locations around Horseshoe Lake in Cass County due to water rapidly rising and trapping multiple people in their homes.

A narrow area, less than 100 yards across with several damaged trees and downed limbs was documented along Highway 15. Roads off of the highway near this location were impassable. This damage lines up perfectly with tight radar indicated rotation, and with a funnel observation. Peak winds in this tornado were estimated at 74 miles per hour. The width of this tornado was measured to be at 80 yards.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:41 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:59 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 00:47 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 Omaha radar (KOAX), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:46 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.