Tornadoes · United States · Oregon · 2019

EF0 tornado, Sprague River, Oregon, May 28, 2019

This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Klamath County on May 28, 2019, touching down at 3:55 PM PDT and reaching 10 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
May 28, 2019
Touchdown
3:55 PM PDT (22:55 UTC)
Lifted
4:01 PM PDT (23:01 UTC)
On the ground
6 minutes
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Klamath County
Touchdown point
42.500, -121.640
Lift-off point
42.500, -121.640
Record number
1905281655-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Numerous thunderstorms developed over south central Oregon on this date. A member of the public submitted a video that showed what appeared to be a funnel cloud possibly briefly coming in contact with the ground.

Numerous thunderstorms developed over south central Oregon on this date. A member of the public submitted a video that showed what appeared to be a funnel cloud possibly briefly coming in contact with the ground. The video location and time was determined by radar data.

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.

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 19:56 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.

Medford/Jackson, OR (KMFR), 12:00Z

10.9 hours before the tornado, 96 km from the path. May 28, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Medford/Jackson, OR at 12:00Z on 2019-05-28Temperature 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 -60689, lifted condensation level 600 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°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, Medford/Jackson, OR at 12:00Z on 2019-05-28The 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 5 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 19 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
-60689 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
600 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
5 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
126 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Medford/Jackson, OR (KMFR), 00:00Z

1.1 hours after it, 96 km from the path. May 29, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Medford/Jackson, OR at 00:00Z on 2019-05-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 67 joules per kilogram, CIN -52, lifted condensation level 1927 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°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, Medford/Jackson, OR at 00:00Z on 2019-05-29The 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 22 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 9 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
67 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-52 J/kg
Surface CAPE
294 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1927 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
22 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
63 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
8.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Medford radar (KMAX), 100 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:57 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
23:00 UTCTORNADO8 Wnw Sprague RiverKlamath, ORVIDEO SENT IN BY PUBLIC SHOWS A VERY BRIEF AND WEAK TORNADO. TIME AND LOCATION BASED ON RADAR. NO DAMAGE OR INJURIES WERE REPORTED.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in OregonEvery tornado in Oregon since 1950Warnings in force in Oregon nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 28, 2019

15 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 282:30 AM EDTEF0Vinton, OH0.1100$10,000
May 283:45 PM EDTEF0Indiana, PA0.330
May 284:50 PM EDTEF1Bradford, PA3.2200$20,000
May 284:06 PM CDTEF0Vermilion, IL0.210
May 284:15 PM CDTEF0Ellis, KS0.125
May 285:52 PM EDTEF2Berks, PA3.1400$25,000
May 285:10 PM CDTUnratedOsage, KS0.525
May 286:10 PM EDTEF0Wyoming, PA1.6751$20,000
May 286:18 PM EDTEF1Lackawanna, PA0.8125$25,000
May 285:20 PM CDTEF2Russell, KS24.4880$150,000
May 285:49 PM CDTEF2Osage, KS10.720012
May 286:05 PM CDTEF4Lawrence–Linwood tornado, KS29.11,7604$26 million
May 286:40 PM CDTUnratedEllis, KS1.350
May 288:30 PM EDTEF1Sussex, NJ1.3350
May 287:58 PM CDTEF2Clay, MO5.8400

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.