Tornadoes · United States · South Dakota · 2014

EF0 tornado, Ree Hgts, South Dakota, May 30, 2014

This EF0 tornado ran 3.6 miles across Hand County on May 30, 2014, touching down at 5:30 PM CDT and reaching 50 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 30, 2014
Touchdown
5:30 PM CDT (22:30 UTC)
Lifted
5:44 PM CDT (22:44 UTC)
On the ground
14 minutes
Path length
3.6 miles (5.9 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Hand County
Touchdown point
44.604, -99.278
Lift-off point
44.651, -99.312
Record number
1405301630-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Scattered thunderstorms brought very heavy rain, flash flooding, and large hail to parts of central South Dakota. The hail was up to golf ball size with a weak tornado in Hand and Hyde Counties.

A tornado touched down 6 miles northwest of Ree Heights. The tornado traveled to the northwest and into eastern Hyde county. No damage occurred with this tornado.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:12 UTC03:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningABR
22:33 UTC23:00 UTCTornado WarningABR
23:27 UTC03:45 UTCFlash Flood WarningABR

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.

Aberdeen, SD (KABR), 12:00Z

10.5 hours before the tornado, 77 km from the path. May 30, 2014.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Aberdeen, SD at 12:00Z on 2014-05-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 348 joules per kilogram, CIN -163, lifted condensation level 1265 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, Aberdeen, SD at 12:00Z on 2014-05-30The 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 119 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 24 knots.1939Sfc1 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
348 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-163 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1265 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
119 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
61 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Aberdeen, SD (KABR), 00:00Z

1.5 hours after it, 77 km from the path. May 31, 2014.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Aberdeen, SD at 00:00Z on 2014-05-31Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 513 joules per kilogram, CIN -95, lifted condensation level 1748 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, Aberdeen, SD at 00:00Z on 2014-05-31The 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 38 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 13 knots.1939Sfc1 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
513 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-95 J/kg
Surface CAPE
520 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1748 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
38 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
46 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Aberdeen radar (KABR), 115 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:28 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
21:03 UTCHEAVY RAIN 221 Nne MillerHand, SDEMERGENCY MANAGER REPORTS 2 INCHES OF RAIN HAS FALLEN IN 45 MINUTES...NO FLOODING YET
21:10 UTCTSTM WND GST 557 Ese FaulktonFaulk, SDEXTREMELY HEAVY RAIN IN APPX 30 MINUTES...0.73 INCHES OF RAINFALL...ALSO STRONG GUSTS TO 50-55 MPH
21:10 UTCHAIL 0.885 Sw CresbardFaulk, SDHAIL UP TO NICKEL SIZE AND HEAVY RAINFALL.
22:21 UTCFLASH FLOOD6 Ese PoloHand, SDOFF OF SOCIAL MEDIA FEED...4.6 INCHES OF RAIN AT THE INTERSECTION OF HIGHWAYS 45 AND 26 AND STILL RAINING...SECONDARY ROADS FLOODED...QUARTER SIZED HAIL AROUND 530 PM CDT
22:21 UTCHEAVY RAIN 3.756 Ese PoloHand, SDOFF OF SOCIAL MEDIA FEED...3.75 INCHES OF RAIN AT THE INTERSECTION OF HIGHWAYS 45 AND 26 AND STILL RAINING
22:25 UTCFLASH FLOOD6 E PoloHand, SDYARD UNDER WATER...FIELDS UNDER WATER...DITCHES FULL...STILL RAINING
22:30 UTCFLASH FLOOD8 Ene PoloHand, SD6.5 INCHES OF RAIN...WATER OVER LOCAL ROADS AND SECONDARY ROADS.
22:30 UTCTORNADO6 Nw Ree HeightsHand, SDEM RELAYED A PUBLIC REPORT OF A TORNADO TOUCHDOWN ABOUT 6 MILES NORTHWEST OF REE HEIGHTS. NO REPORTS OF DAMAGE AT THIS TIME.
22:35 UTCTORNADO7 Nw Ree HeightsHand, SDSLOW MOVING TORNADO IN OPEN COUNTRY NO DAMAGE NOTED CORRECTED FOR TIME OF EVENT
23:40 UTCTSTM WND GST 751 E HarroldHughes, SDPEAK WIND GUST REPORTED FROM THE HARROD RWIS DOT SITE.
00:19 UTCFLASH FLOOD8 Ne HighmoreHyde, SD3.65 INCHES OF RAIN CAUSED FLOODING OVER A ROAD.
00:35 UTCTORNADO7 Nw Ree HeightsHand, SDSLOW MOVING TORNADO IN OPEN COUNTRY NO DAMAGE NOTED

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 South DakotaEvery tornado in South Dakota since 1950Warnings in force in South Dakota nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 30, 2014

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 304:38 PM EDTEF0Hendry, FL0.310
May 304:45 PM EDTEF0Hillsborough, FL0.550$50,000
May 305:44 PM CDTEF0Hyde, SD1.850

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.