Unrated tornado, Fonda, Wyoming, May 16, 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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated, preliminary

Date

May 16, 2026

Touchdown

4:47 PM MDT (22:47 UTC)

Lifted

4:51 PM MDT (22:51 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Goshen County

Touchdown point

41.835, -104.308

Lift-off point

41.836, -104.304

Surveyed by

NWS CYS

The office's name for it

Yoder Landspout #2

Survey last edited

May 23, 2026

Record number

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

During the afternoon of May 16 a boundary was in place across Goshen County in association with convection to the north and southwest. A few developing showers were able to spawn two landspouts. This second landspout was more diffused than the one ongoing to the south, but the dust column reached up to the cloud base. The location and duration of this tornado is a little more uncertain than the other and is estimated from available photographs and accounts. No damage was reported.

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

Two landspout tornadoes formed south of Yoder in Goshen County during the afternoon of May 16.

The first landspout formed northwest of Hawk Springs, kicking up dust and debris over mostly open country. This landspout was visually more robust than the one to the north. The tornado moved northeast slowly for about 15-20 minutes. Witnesses described it took awhile for the debris cloud to settle. No damage has been reported.

This second landspout was more diffused than the one ongoing to the south, but the dust column reached up to the cloud base.

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

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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.

Torrington Municipal Airport (TOR), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Cheyenne radar (KCYS), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:46 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 WyomingEvery tornado in Wyoming since 1950Warnings in force in Wyoming nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.