Staff report
An EF-1 tornado with peak winds of 100 miles per hour touched down on the east side of Redfield at 12:56 a.m. on Friday morning, August 28th. The tornado carved a 2.1 mile path of damage through corn fields and property. According to the National Weather Service, the path measured 40 yards wide at its maximum width.
“First indications of damage occurred in a corn field west of 386th Avenue. Damage was then noted on East
8th Avenue where several vehicles had windows damaged and a trailer was flipped into a corn field across the street,” reported the National Weather Service. “Trees along the property line with Farmers Meat Processing were damaged, one tree having landed facing to the west. Farmers Meat Processing signage was also torn out of the ground. The tornado path became clearly evident in the corn field across East 12th Avenue. The tornado then traveled northeast into the Blume Seed building which lost the west side doors and suffered significant wall damage, with the north wall destroyed.”
Seed silos belonging to Blume Seeds also suffered damage, with noticeable buckling due to the strong winds. An arm chair, sheets of tin, household items, large pieces of insulation, and other debris was scattered across the grass field adjacent to Blume Seeds Friday morning. A large tree on the northeast side of the grass field was also broken in half by the tornado. Pieces of the tree were scattered across Highway 212 and the tornado continued through several soybean and corn fields and resulted in tree damage near 387th Avenue. The final crop damage was noted just south of 172nd Street. The tornado came to an end at 1 a.m. at 3rd northeast in Redfield.
Meanwhile, a second twister was also busy forming at approximately 12:56a.m. August 28th two miles east of Redfield. A smaller one, this was only an EF-0 with peak winds of 85 miles per hour. The tornado’s path was shorter, at 1.3 miles, but it’s maximum width was also 40 yards. It caused damage near Highway 212 in multiple corn fields, completely leveling corn in areas.
According to the Redfield airport records, Redfield received .76 inch of rain that night and wind gusts reached 44 miles per hour at the airport. Weather reports also stated that lightening struck 432 times in the area over night. Part of Redfield also experienced an electricity outage for one hour.
Sunday storm
and tornado
On Sunday evening, at approximately 8:15p.m., rain began to fall in Redfield, quickly becoming a heavy downpour. For those driving, visibility was near zero as the torrent continued for 2.5 hours. Small pebble-sized hail also fell in Redfield. Over 2.5 hours, it was recorded that Redfield received 1.89 inches of rain. The Redfield airport received 1.51 inches of rain and recorded wind gusts of 31 miles per hour.
A tornado also touched down north of Miller on Sunday evening. A 73-year-old man, Paul Nelson, who was driving an RV on State Highway 45 north of Miller died after he and his RV were struck by the tornado, according to the National Weather Service. The man was about 13 miles north of Miller and was southbound on State Highway 45. He was hauling a small sedan on a trailer. The tornado touched down and crossed the road from east to west, causing the trailer to detach from the RV. The trailer and sedan ended up in the west ditch. The RV came to rest 150 to 200 yards west of the road in a nearby field. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
