NWS upgrades tornado strength near Royals, Chiefs stadiums after ‘oddball’ designation
The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down Tuesday at the Truman Sports Complex near Kauffman Stadium and GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
When a tornado hits, it later is assigned a number on the Enhanced Fujita scale, ranging from EF-0 (65 mph to 85 mph) to EF-5 (winds over 200 mph), per the NWS.
The Truman Sports Complex twister, however, was given an EF-Unknown designation or EFU.
The Weather Channel called the EFU an “oddball exception.” While noting that the unusual designation wasn’t widely used until 2016, the Weather Channel wrote “many of the EFU tornadoes are in the Plains or Midwest states.”
The National Weather Service in Kansas City said Wednesday the tornado was “only confirmed via a radar debris signature and video footage and damage is limited, therefore its EF rating is unknown.”
But on Thursday morning, the NWS changed that designation to EF-0.
“Follow up survey results found tree damage consistent with an EF-0 tornado southwest of the Truman Sports Complex, beginning just west of I-435,” the weather service wrote on X. “Previously the tornado was only confirmed via video footage and a brief tornado debris signature on radar.”
The tornado’s maximum width was 50 yards and it traveled 0.90 miles. Initially, the tornado was thought to have traveled just a quarter-mile.
Fox 4 meteorologist Jacob Lanier on X/Twitter noted the path the tornado took into the Truman Sports Complex parking lot.
Photos from the Truman Sports Complex showed porta-potties knocked over, along with a light pole.
Scene inside Kauffman Stadium
While many jokes were made about the lack of damage, it could have been worse if the Royals had been playing at home. FanDuel Sports Kansas City trucks potentially could have been impacted by the storm.
“Scary for our crew. With the team being on the road, our crew was actually set up in our cloud control room inside the stadium,” Ben Blevins, a director of communications for FanDuel Sports, wrote in an email. “When the sirens went off, they sheltered in place with the Royals staff who were on site. We did not have a production truck there, so no damage to that. But I was told it did hit awfully close to that area, so there likely would have been damage and a much scarier scenario had there been a home game. Thankfully there wasn’t.”
The Royals played in St. Louis on Tuesday night, so the trucks already had been moved from the Truman Sports Complex.
Royals employees at Kauffman Stadium took shelter on Level 2 and moved to the tunnel between the stadiums, a team employee said.
Quin Swartz, a ballpark operations assistant for the Royals, shared a video of Kauffman Stadium on X/Twitter as the storm blew through the area.
This story was originally published June 5, 2025 at 11:04 AM.
