EF1 tornado, Ashland, Nebraska, May 17, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF1, preliminary

Date

May 17, 2026

Touchdown

7:55 PM CDT (00:55 UTC)

Lifted

7:58 PM CDT (00:58 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.2 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Saunders County

Touchdown point

41.070, -96.355

Lift-off point

41.076, -96.343

Highest wind the damage implies

104 mph

Surveyed by

NWS OAX

Survey last edited

May 19, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

A tornado developed in an open field, snapping and throwing several large branches in a field. It then progressed east northeast to the Sandy Pointe lake area where it threw a dock approximately 100 yards, removed shingles from one house, and removed much of a roof from another house, throwing it approximately 80 yards away into the lake. Video suggests that the tornado ended to the northeast, with no damage to any vegetation along the Platte River.

Written by NWS OAX in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

7 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 104 mph.

• Roof partially torn off home.
• Multiple boat docks thrown or destroyed.
• Debris deposited at this location. Videos suggest this is the approximate end point of the tornado. Overhead survey imagery supports this.

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

Severe thunderstorms produced hail, damaging wind gusts, and tornadoes across eastern Nebraska on May 17, 2026. On this day, an upper-level trough axis remained well to the west, but an embedded shortwave and attendant jet streak ejected from eastern Colorado into eastern Nebraska. At the surface, an elongated trough extended from a low in southeast Colorado through south-central Nebraska into southeast South Dakota, acting as a persistent focus for strong deep moist convergence. During the afternoon, a narrow dryline surged into central Nebraska and Kansas. East of the boundary, warm-sector dewpoints recovered into the mid-to-upper 60s, yielding a highly unstable environment with 3,000 to 4,000 J/kg of MLCAPE. Although mid-level winds were somewhat weak���resulting in unimpressive 0���6 km bulk shear���low-level hodographs featured ample cyclonic curvature. This provided sufficient low-level shear to keep updrafts organized and separated from downdrafts despite the weaker flow aloft.||A broken line of strong to severe thunderstorms developed across east-central Nebraska during the afternoon, pushing eastwards and growing upscale into a formidable wind-producing convective system. The storms initially presented a mixed hazard of large hail and damaging winds as they impacted counties including Madison, Platte, Cuming, and Saline. Hail up to golf ball size (1.75 inches) was reported near Wisner, while quarter-size hail fell in several surrounding communities. Three EF-1 tornadoes were also confirmed across eastern Nebraska in Thurston, Saunders and Cass county. However, severe straight-line winds quickly became the dominant threat. Wind gusts consistently measured between 60 and 70 mph caused widespread tree damage, snapping large branches with noticeable tree damage reported in communities like Friend, Crete, and Fairbury.||As the line surged eastward through the mid-to-late evening, the severe wind threat pushed straight through the Lincoln and Omaha metropolitan areas before crossing the Missouri River into western Iowa. An automated station at the Lincoln Airport measured a 68 mph wind gust, while emergency managers and spotters reported 70 mph gusts across Lancaster and Sarpy counties. These intense winds resulted in minor structural damage, including a torn gutter on a home in Lincoln and a damaged street light in La Vista. The Omaha Eppley Airfield recorded a 63 mph gust as the storms swept through the metro. By late evening, the system accelerated across southeast Nebraska and southwest Iowa, producing severe wind gusts of 71 mph in Pawnee County, Nebraska, before finally weakening and exiting the region.

A tornado developed in an open field, snapping and throwing several large branches in a field. It then progressed east northeast to the Sandy Pointe lake area where it threw a dock approximately 100 yards, removed shingles from one house, and removed much of a roof from another house, throwing it approximately 80 yards away into the lake. Video suggests that the tornado ended to the northeast, with no damage to any vegetation along the Platte River. Maximum wind speeds were estimated at 104 mph.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:47 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:07 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:20 UTC and running to 02:17 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 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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.

Millard (MLE), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:53 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 2026 tornado in NebraskaEvery tornado in Nebraska since 1950Warnings in force in Nebraska nowThe forecast where you are

47 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.