1 tornado, as filed by the National Weather Service.
Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS St. Louis, MO wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Apr 24, 2:25 PM CST, 30 minutes earlier.
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION...UPDATED TO ADD TOR WATCH #147 DISC
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ST LOUIS MO
325 PM CDT WED APR 24 2002
THE SKINNY...STG CDFNT MOVG ACRS FA ATTM WITH STG-SVR TSTMS ALG/AHD
OF IT. CDFNT WL BE THRU ERN/SRN PRTNS OF FA BFR 00Z...SO ONLY BRIEF
MENTION OF TSTMS ERL TNGT WL BE NEEDED.
OTRW...TEMPS THE ONLY FCST PROB THRU THU NGT WITH GUIDANCE HANDLING
THINGS RATHER WELL. AIRMASS BLDG IN BHND CDFNT QUITE COOL FOR LATE
APRIL.
NXT PCPN CHC WL BE ON FRI AFTN AS WRMFNT PUSHES NEWD IN RESPONSE TO
LEE CYCLOGEN. STG LOW-MID LVL WAA/THTA-E ADVCTN BLDS IN LATE ON
NOSE OF DIFFUSE H850 JET. CONDS FAVORABLE FOR ELEVATED CONVECTION
EVENT BEGINNING LATE FRI AFTN CONTG INTO FRI NGT/ERL SAT MRNG. WL
KP THUNDER GOING ON FRI AFTN DESPITE RATHER LOW SHOWALTER VALUES...
AS LOCN OF TGT SHOWALTER GRAD MORE IMPORTANT THAN ACTUAL VALUES.
MORE OF THE SAME HEADING INTO EXTDD PD WITH PCPN EVENT EVERY 2-3
DAYS AND SEASONABLE TEMPS.
***WL TRIM AWAY AT EXISTING TOR WATCH...GIVEN CURRENT POSN OF FNT.
XPCTD EXTENT OF TOR WATCH AT ZONE PRESS TIME WL BE ROUGHLY FM
LITCHFIELD-CPS-FAM.***
.STL...TOR WATCH #147 ROUGHLY ALG AND E OF A LN FM
LITCHFIELD IL-CPS-FAM.
TESThe St Louis radar (KLSX), 106 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 20:54 UTC.
1 tornado. Local standard time, as filed.
A tornado formed in southeast Washington County just south of Caledonia. The tornado formed in a wooded area them moved east to a home near Highway 21 and Buford Farm Road. An unoccupied mobile home was destroyed and several vehicles were severely damaged.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Missouri in 2002Every state in 2002This day in weather historyThe tornado archive for Missouri, 2002Warnings in Missouri, April 2002
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5289705.