EF0 tornado, Hastings, Nebraska, July 6, 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 6, 2024

Touchdown

4:52 PM CDT (21:52 UTC)

Lifted

4:54 PM CDT (21:54 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

Crop damage

$500,000

County

Adams County

Touchdown point

40.587, -98.290

Lift-off point

40.584, -98.284

Record number

2407061552-01

21 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 85 mph.

• Large limbs down in the city park
• Various sizes of tree limb damage in Glenvil
• N or NW sides of grain bins blown in. Top blown across the highway into adjacent field
• Roof partially removed on outbuilding

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

A broad, upper trough was over most of the country, including Nebraska. An upper disturbance passed over the central Plains which created enhanced lift. CAPE values of around 2,000 J/kg, wind shear of around 40 to 50 knots, and mid-level lapse rates of 7 to 8 degrees C/km were over south-central Nebraska. Temperatures were mostly in the 70s to lower 80s. These conditions resulted in an atmosphere that was conducive for severe storm development.||Thunderstorms had already developed to the northwest of the area during the early to mid-morning hours and moved over central Nebraska during the late morning hours. Additional storms developed to the west and northwest of the area during the late morning hours. These storms moved eastward and one storm began impacting Dawson County with hail up to the size of tennis balls just after 12 PM CDT. This storm continued moving east southeast through the afternoon with other storms moving in behind the original storm. The largest hail of the day was baseball sized and fell in Phelps County after 2 PM CDT. Additional hail impacted Dawson, Gosper, Buffalo, Phelps, Kearney, Franklin, Webster, and Fillmore Counties. These storms produced 5 tornadoes which impacted Kearney, Adams, Clay, and Fillmore Counties. The first two tornadoes impacted Kearney County and were both rated EF1. The third and fourth tornadoes impacted Adams County and were both rated EF0. The fifth tornado first touched down in Clay County then moved into Fillmore County and was rated an EF1. Severe wind gusts were also reported with these storms with the strongest winds estimated near 80 mph in Kearney and Adams Counties. The storm reports ended just before 6 PM CDT as the storms moved east of the area.

A multi-vortex tornado, confirmed by storm chaser video, touched down in a corn field just north of the highway rest stop along Highway 6 east of Hastings. The tornado produced intermittent tree damage as it drifted south over the rest stop area and near a residence. A new condensation funnel developed over a nearby corn field where a pivot was overturned. The tornado actually curved back to the north, back across the highway, then dissipated shortly thereafter in a corn field. The official track is a best estimate based on a combination of damage and storm chaser video. The peak wind gust was estimated to be 85 MPH.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS GID issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:29 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:28 UTC and running to 00:32 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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 Grand Island radar (KUEX), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:52 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

6 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.