Tornadoes · United States · Wyoming · 2015

EF0 tornado, Savageton, Wyoming, June 3, 2015

This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Campbell County on June 3, 2015, touching down at 7:20 PM MDT 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
June 3, 2015
Touchdown
7:20 PM MDT (01:20 UTC)
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Campbell County
Touchdown point
43.830, -105.790
Lift-off point
43.830, -105.790
Record number
1506031920-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A stationary thunderstorm produced several inches of rain in less than two hours along the Johnson-Campbell County line. Officials closed Interstate 90 after water and debris covered the highway between Gillette and Buffalo. Another small thunderstorm produced a brief tornado near Savageton and other severe thunderstorms produced wind gusts around 60 mph.

A small tornado was briefly observed by a fire fighter and the public.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:13 UTC and running to 03:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:13 UTC03:00 UTCTornado WatchUNR
00:22 UTC01:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNR
01:11 UTC01:48 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNR
01:20 UTC04:15 UTCFlash Flood WarningUNR
04:15 UTC15:39 UTCFlood WarningUNR
06:13 UTC07:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNR

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 01:05 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.

Riverton, WY (KRIW), 00:00Z

1.3 hours before the tornado, 227 km from the path. June 4, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Riverton, WY at 00:00Z on 2015-06-04Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 141 joules per kilogram, CIN -106, lifted condensation level 2471 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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, Riverton, WY at 00:00Z on 2015-06-04The 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 53 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 37 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
141 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-106 J/kg
Surface CAPE
646 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2471 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
53 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
226 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
9.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Riverton, WY (KRIW), 12:00Z

10.7 hours after it, 227 km from the path. June 4, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Riverton, WY at 12:00Z on 2015-06-04Temperature 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 -90366, lifted condensation level 1224 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 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, Riverton, WY at 12:00Z on 2015-06-04The 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 127 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 35 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
-90366 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1224 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
127 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
226 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Riverton/Lander radar (KRIW), 233 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:19 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
00:50 UTCHAIL 0.719 Nnw SavagetonCampbell, WY1 INCH OF RAIN WITHIN 20 MINUTES
01:20 UTCTORNADO3 S SavagetonCampbell, WY
03:00 UTCFLASH FLOOD30 Ese BuffaloJohnson, WYWATER AND DEBRIS ACROSS INTERSTATE 90 NEAR MILEPOSTS 90 AND 91. INTERSTATE IS CLOSED BETWEEN BUFFALO AND GILLETTE.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in WyomingEvery tornado in Wyoming since 1950Warnings in force in Wyoming nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 3, 2015

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 310:15 PM CDTEF1Osborne, KS1.0125$200,000
June 310:17 PM CDTEF1Osborne, KS1.2100$250,000
June 310:28 PM CDTEF0Mitchell, KS0.325$25,000

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.