Tornadoes · United States · Nevada · 2014

EF0 tornado, Belmont, Nevada, September 20, 2014

This EF0 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Nye County on September 20, 2014, touching down at 5:00 PM PDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
September 20, 2014
Touchdown
5:00 PM PDT (00:00 UTC)
Lifted
5:05 PM PDT (00:05 UTC)
On the ground
5 minutes
Path length
0.4 miles (0.6 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Nye County
Touchdown point
39.070, -116.510
Lift-off point
39.064, -116.510
Record number
1409201800-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A hunter photographed a tornado over a remote mountainous region of northern Nye county.

A tornado was photographed by a hunter in the Butler Basin area. The tornado was over a nearby mountain range. Due to the remoteness of the area no storm survey was conducted.|Path length and width as well as duration of tornado on ground are rough estimates based off of photographs.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:19 UTC23:15 UTCFlood AdvisoryLKN
23:27 UTC02:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningLKN
23:46 UTC02:45 UTCFlood AdvisoryLKN
23:59 UTC00:28 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLKN
00:00 UTC03:43 UTCFlash Flood WatchLKN
00:21 UTC00:49 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLKN
01:16 UTC04:15 UTCFlood AdvisoryVEF
05:20 UTC11:15 UTCFlood AdvisoryLKN

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. 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 air that afternoon

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.

Reno, NV (KREV), 00:00Z

0.0 hours before the tornado, 156 km from the path. September 21, 2014.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Reno, NV at 00:00Z on 2014-09-21Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 285 joules per kilogram, CIN -47, lifted condensation level 2971 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Reno, NV at 00:00Z on 2014-09-21The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 14 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 9 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
285 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-47 J/kg
Surface CAPE
435 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2971 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
14 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-10 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
10.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Reno, NV (KREV), 12:00Z

12.0 hours after it, 156 km from the path. September 21, 2014.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Reno, NV at 12:00Z on 2014-09-21Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -77606, lifted condensation level 1972 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Reno, NV at 12:00Z on 2014-09-21The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -42 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 15 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-77606 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1972 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-42 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-14 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Elko radar (KLRX), 188 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:02 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
21:43 UTCHAIL 0.2520 Ese Hickison SummitEureka, NVHAIL AND HEAVY RAIN WITH MINOR RUNOFF.
00:00 UTCTORNADO28 Sse Hickison SummitNye, NVAN EF-0 TORNADO WAS RELAYED THROUGH A STORM SPOTTER AND WAS VERIFIED THROUGH PICTURES. THIS TORNADO OCCURRED IN THE MOUNTAINS AND NO STORM SURVEY WILL BE CONDUCTED. TORNADO WAS IN THE BUTLER BASIN AND BUTLER CREEK AREA.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2014 tornado in NevadaEvery tornado in Nevada since 1950Warnings in force in Nevada nowThe forecast where you are

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.