A powerful storm cell moved from Crawford into northern Box Butte County on Thursday evening, producing a tornado that made its way through the county, but produced no structural damage, according to officials with the National Weather Service.
Richard Emmanuel, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cheyenne, Wyo., said surveyors who tracked the storm and investigated the aftermath classified the tornado as an EF-2.
“We rated it as an EF-2, which has the estimated peak winds of 105 to 115 miles per hour,” said Emmanuel. “It had a path length of 3.4 miles and a maximum width of maybe 275 yards. It lasted about nine minutes.”
During the survey, National Weather Service officials noted there was no structural damage reported and that the tornado remained mostly in fields. Other hazards were presented by the storm that produced the tornado.
“Some center pivots and power poles were damaged and bent, but as far as I know, there were no structures damaged,” Emmanuel said. “It pretty much stayed out in open fields. The storm initiated near Crawford and moved southeast. It did produce some large hail as it got closer to Marsland and moved on toward Hemingford. There were some accounts of up to baseball-sized hail northeast of Marsland.”
Emmanuel said the tornado remained within Box Butte County.