The Strangest Things We Saw In The Plains Tornado Outbreak
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A rash of tornadoes in the Plains over the past several days has been both destructive and deadly, and has also produced some strange sights that captured the attention of meteorologists.
Staggering tally: More than 120 tornadoes have been either confirmed by the National Weather Service or were sighted by spotters from April 25-28, primarily in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. That’s more than the average for any month other than April, May or June. Additional tornadoes touched down in the storm-weary Plains this week.
Scour marks in a field: On April 26, an EF3 tornado tore an almost 10-mile long path through Howard County, Nebraska. In video shot by pilot Aaron Wells, you can see the path of the tornado in farm fields showing up as segments of large circles of scoured ground, known as cycloidal marks.
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Tornado vs. train: Another Nebraska tornado had several incredible aspects.
First, the rotating supercell thunderstorm passed right over the heart of Nebraska’s capital city, Lincoln, but didn’t spawn a tornado until it was on the northeast outskirts of the metro area.
It first heavily damaged a manufacturing plant, which prompted the EF3 rating. The tornado then slammed into a parked freight train, derailing several cars and giving the train’s staff an experience they’ll never forget. It finally crossed Interstate 80, then narrowly missed the town of Waverly.
Despite all that, nobody was killed and only three were injured from this strong tornado.
Hope follows destruction: Something truly amazing happened after an EF3 tornado tore a 31-mile long path through some outer suburbs of Omaha.
Covering the aftermath from Elkhorn, Nebraska on a Sunday morning after the tornado, The Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel noted, “This is the largest post-storm cleanup I’ve seen in over 30 years @weatherchannel,” in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
And, as Seidel alluded to, there were “only minor injuries” from this strong tornado.
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Debris found miles away: As weather.com’s Jan Childs reported, some tornado debris was recovered far from tornado-struck towns.
That included a baseball card that was recovered in Owasso, Oklahoma, 106 miles from where an EF3 tornado passed near Holdenville.
Stronger and long-track tornadoes can loft lighter debris such as papers and photos and transport it sometimes more than 100 miles downstream. A study following the April 2011 Super Outbreak documented a photo blown 220 miles from an EF5 tornado in northern Alabama to eastern Tennessee.
This lofted debris can be detected by radar, allowing meteorologists to confirm a tornado is in progress, even it’s happening at night or hidden by rain.
Airport damage: Another Nebraska tornado first touched down on the east side of Omaha’s Eppley Airfield, the major airport serving Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa. Fortunately, there wasn’t damage to the terminal. But several aircraft hangars were destroyed and small aircraft that were not secured were flipped.
Iowa survival story: One family’s quick decision may have saved their lives. Before an EF3 tornado destroyed their home, a Pottawatomie County family took shelter in a basement bathroom. According to the NWS-Omaha damage survey, that was “one of the few locations in the home not directly impacted by major flying debris.”
A home “slid” off its foundation: After an EF3 tornado did extensive damage on the east side of Minden, Iowa, it left a weird mark on a couple homes northeast of town.
One home was detached from its foundation and slid approximately 10 yards, remaining at least “somewhat intact,” according to the NWS-Omaha damage survey. Stranger still, a home less than a half mile away had “only small interior rooms remaining,” according to the survey.
This sight reminded weather.com managing editor Sean Breslin of a similar “house shift” in Georgia in April 2020.
Warnings-palooza: On April 26, the National Weather Service in Omaha issued 42 tornado warnings for their forecast area of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, a record for their office for any single day dating to 1986. And that was just a fraction of the almost 750 severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings issued by NWS offices from April 26 through the morning of April 28.
First EF4 in over a year: A tornado that raked through parts of Marietta, Oklahoma, on the night of April 27 was the nation’s first EF4 tornado in just over a year.
The late-night tornado earned the EF4 rating, after consultation with an engineer, due to damage sustained at the Dollar Tree Warehouse and a retail store in the town. One person was killed in the tornado.
Hail of a track meet: On Tuesday, April 30, another round of thunderstorms flared up over eastern Nebraska. That affected a track meet in the Holt County town of Atkinson, covering the track in hailstones.
“(The) athletes were actually in the starting blocks … and lightning started, so luckily they had all ran for cover before the hail hit,” St. Mary’s High School hurdle coach Mike Peterson told weather.com.
Curvy tornado: Also on Tuesday, a tornado destroyed roughly two dozen homes and claimed one life in the northeast Kansas town of Westmoreland.
Aside from that, what was remarkable about it was how the vortex snaked almost horizontally through the sky. Spectacular video from the town showed the vortex at the cloud’s base was nearly overhead, while the circulation at the ground was some distance away.
Storm chaser Aaron Jayjack also captured that funky structure of the tornado about halfway through his video, as lofted debris streamed in the foreground.
A “mic drop” radar loop: Perhaps the most stunning imagery from this rash of tornadoes came from southwest Oklahoma’s Tillman County Tuesday evening.
First, radar picked up a tornado east-northeast of Hollister, Oklahoma. Moments after that tornado fizzled, another tornado formed southeast of Loveland, but it was spinning in the opposite direction, or clockwise. According to the National Weather Service, only about 1 percent of all tornadoes in the Northern Hemisphere spin anticyclonically.
Satellite imagery wows meteorologist: Severe thunderstorms are one of the most spectacular sights seen from space. That was certainly the case Tuesday.
First, watch the severe thunderstorms in eastern Kansas literally explode in this loop.
Then watch the bubbling, gurgling convection that was the severe thunderstorms spawning tornadoes over southwest Oklahoma.
One of most prolific Aprils on record: According to Storm Prediction Center meteorologist Evan Bentley, this rash of tornadoes pushed the national preliminary tornado count to the second highest on record, behind only the off-the-charts April 2011.
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Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. His lifelong love of meteorology began with a close encounter with a tornado as a child in Wisconsin. He completed a Bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then a Master’s degree working with dual-polarization radar and lightning data at Colorado State University. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on X (formerly Twitter), Threads, Facebook and Bluesky.