EF0 tornado, Axtell to Heartwell, Nebraska, May 23, 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

May 23, 2024

Touchdown

11:51 PM CDT (04:51 UTC)

Lifted

11:56 PM CDT (04:56 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

4.3 miles (7.0 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$75,000

County

Kearney County

Touchdown point

40.568, -99.174

Lift-off point

40.555, -99.093

Record number

2405232251-01

25 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GID, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• Cross of road with concentrated corn stocks
• Pivot damaged. Soybeans ground down.

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

Extensive line of thunderstorms brings broad swaths of damaging winds, along with a few tornadoes, to portions of south central Nebraska during the late evening hours of May 23rd into the early morning hours of May 24th. A cold front associated with a closed upper low pressure over the Dakotas sparked a line of thunderstorms to develop during the late afternoon hours from central SD into the NE Panhandle. This activity, fueled by strong instability (MLCAPE 1500-3000 J/kg) and deep layer shear, become intense and organized prior to moving into far W portions of the GID CWA around 10pm CDT. The line continued to strengthen and organize as it shifted eastward into deeper low level moisture and, in turn, began to produce occasional QLCS tornadoes. The line impacted the Tri-Cities shortly after midnight. Of the Tri-Cities, Hastings was by far the most severely impacted, with several reports of wind gusts around 60 MPH and extensive tree damage in and around town. An 85 MPH wind gust was measured just west of Hastings in the Heartwell area. As storms continued eastward during the early morning hours of the 24th, damaging wind remained the primary threat. The strongest and most concentrated area of wind reports occurred roughly along the Highway 74 corridor in Clay and Fillmore Counties. Here, a 75 MPH gust was measured by a mesonet just E of Edgar. The severe portion of the line exited eastern portions of the forecast area by 2AM on the 24th. In total, there were 5 confirmed tornadoes from this event, all of which were of the weak and QLCS variety. The most impactful tornado, and the only one to hit a population center, was in Holdrege, but even this damage was fairly minor and rated as an EF1.

A local resident reported damage to an irrigation pivot and soybean field north of Axtell. Subsequent radar review showed a circulation in the same area and time as the report, supporting a tornado. The location of the path was estimated based upon radar and the local resident report. The tornado was rated an EF0 with peak winds estimated to be 80 MPH based upon damage described to the pivot.

This EF0 rated tornado damaged a handful of irrigation pivots and trees along its over eight mile path. The peak wind speed was estimated to be 85 MPH, based upon tree damage near the middle of the path. This tornado was also noted by a drop in the WSR-88D correlation coefficient product. The drop coincides with the path, but damage was very limited. One possible theory is the lower correlation coefficient shown on radar was caused by corn stalks lifted into the air from several no-till fields.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 01:43 UTC and running to 06:02 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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), 64 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:48 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

26 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.