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In this photo submitted by Brittany Daniel, a bright wheat field is a stark contrast to the dark clouds that produced a landspout tornado in southeast Sedgwick County last Wednesday, July 8.

Landspout tornado a sight to behold

Those in northeast Phillips County were in awe after witnessing a landspout tornado touch down in Sedgwick County around 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 8.

“It was quite a scenic tornado, and we had spotter reports, photos and video on social media from many different vantage points,” said Greg Hanson, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Denver/Boulder.

“All the visual sightings can make it difficult to determine if it was a single tornado or multiple tornadoes, but given the timing and how everyone seemed to be looking at the same location, we can safely say it was one tornado in Sedgwick County,” said Hanson, noting the NWS report was still a preliminary assessment.

Fortunately, no injuries were reported, despite the many sightings from people who were at home, in their vehicles or in wheat harvest.

The tornado touched down near county roads 57 and 16 in Sedgwick County, several miles southeast of Julesburg. A small, empty shed was destroyed.

Hanson said the tornado was classified as a landspout tornado, which is part of a family of relatively weak, short-lived tornadoes. They typically fall on the EF0 to EF1 side of the scale, with wind speeds up to about 100 mph. Visually, landspout tornadoes appear to be narrow, rope-like condensation funnels.

“The overall storm was a supercell storm, characterized by a rotating updraft that gives it a long life span,” said Hanson. This parent thunderstorm moved from northeast Colorado to southwest Nebraska.

Shawn Jacobs, the warning coordination meteorologist from the NWS in North Platte, Nebraska, said several landspout tornadoes developed over portions of western Perkins County, Nebraska, and central Thomas County, Nebraska, on Wednesday evening.

Jacobs said three tornadoes — 4 miles north of Venango, Nebraska, 5 miles west of Grant, Nebraska, and 2 miles west of Grant — all have strong photographic evidence supporting that they briefly occurred over open range.

His assessment is also preliminary, but Jacobs said no damage was reported apart from some minor tree and fence damage.

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