Tornadoes · United States · Arkansas · 1968
F4 tornado, Jackson, Craighead and Mississippi counties, Arkansas, May 15, 1968
This F4 tornado ran 20.9 miles across Jackson, Craighead and Mississippi counties on May 15, 1968, touching down at 9:45 PM GMT-5 and reaching 250 yards wide. It killed 35 people and injured 364, and did $5,000 to $50,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mph
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
F3158 to 206 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mphthis tornado
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 mph
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.
The record
- Rating
- F4
- Date
- May 15, 1968
- Touchdown
- 9:45 PM GMT-5 (02:45 UTC)
- Path length
- 20.9 miles (33.6 km)
- Path width
- 250 yards (229 m)
- Deaths
- 35
- Injuries
- 364
- Property damage
- $5,000 to $50,000
- Counties
- Jackson, Craighead and Mississippi counties
- Touchdown point
- 35.730, -91.180
- Lift-off point
- 35.900, -90.030
- Record number
- 224
What the Weather Service recorded
The deaths
35 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.
| Age | Sex | Where | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct |
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The air that afternoon
The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.
Little Rock, AR (KLIT), 00:00Z
2.8 hours before the tornado, 125 km from the path. May 16, 1968.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2781 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -4 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3683 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 875 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 47 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 189 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 274 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 4.2
- Supercell composite
- 20.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.3 K/km
Little Rock, AR (KLIT), 12:00Z
9.2 hours after it, 125 km from the path. May 16, 1968.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- 0 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 0 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 45 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 19 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -174 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -51 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1968 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 15, 1968
32 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 15 | 3:28 PM GMT-5 | F2 | Rice, MN | 15.4 | 333 | 3 | $50,000 to $500,000 | |
| May 15 | 3:30 PM GMT-5 | F3 | Mason, IL | 12.6 | 600 | 25 | $500,000 to $5 million | |
| May 15 | 3:45 PM GMT-5 | F3 | Miami, KS to MO | 2.7 | 50 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 4:10 PM GMT-5 | F5 | Charles City tornado, IA | 62.1 | 600 | 13 | 462 | $5 million to $50 million |
| May 15 | 4:30 PM GMT-5 | F2 | Johnson, MO | 5.2 | 200 | 2 | $50,000 to $500,000 | |
| May 15 | 4:45 PM GMT-5 | F2 | Hendricks, IN | 8.8 | 10 | 5 | $50,000 to $500,000 | |
| May 15 | 4:45 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Ray, MO | 3.6 | 50 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 4:57 PM GMT-5 | F5 | Oelwein tornado, IA | 13.1 | 500 | 5 | 156 | $5 million to $50 million |
| May 15 | 4:58 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Fayette, IA | 0.3 | 300 | $500 to $5,000 | ||
| May 15 | 5:00 PM GMT-5 | F1 | DeWitt, IL | 25.4 | 1,000 | 4 | 50 | $500,000 to $5 million |
| May 15 | 5:00 PM GMT-5 | F0 | Freeborn, MN | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| May 15 | 5:00 PM GMT-5 | F2 | Johnson, MO | 12.3 | 50 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 5:00 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Lafayette, MO | 4.9 | 50 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 5:07 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Dodge, MN | 7.8 | 20 | $50,000 to $500,000 | ||
| May 15 | 5:40 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Steele, MN | 16.6 | 27 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 5:45 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Audubon, IA | 2.0 | 250 | 1 | $5,000 to $50,000 | |
| May 15 | 6:00 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Jasper, MO | 2.5 | 50 | 3 | $5,000 to $50,000 | |
| May 15 | 7:15 PM GMT-4 | F1 | Wayne, OH | 1.0 | 367 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 6:15 PM GMT-5 | F2 | Howard, IA | 4.7 | 250 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 6:45 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Fillmore, MN | 8.4 | 77 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 6:50 PM GMT-5 | F3 | Iroquois, IL | 7.1 | 400 | $500,000 to $5 million | ||
| May 15 | 8:00 PM GMT-4 | F2 | Wayne, OH | 1.0 | 440 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 7:30 PM GMT-5 | F3 | Baxter, AR | 7.3 | 200 | 3 | 25 | $5,000 to $50,000 |
| May 15 | 8:15 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Fulton, AR | 0.1 | 10 | $500 to $5,000 | ||
| May 15 | 8:40 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Jefferson, MO | 5.9 | 100 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 9:36 PM GMT-5 | F4 | Independence, AR | 0.3 | 300 | 7 | 24 | $500,000 to $5 million |
| May 15 | 9:45 PM GMT-5 | F3 | Saint Clair, IL | 2.0 | 200 | 4 | 60 | $50,000 to $500,000 |
| May 15 | 9:50 PM GMT-5 | F2 | Butler, MO | 0.2 | 20 | 1 | $5,000 to $50,000 | |
| May 15 | 10:20 PM GMT-5 | F1 | Dunklin, MO | 1.5 | 17 | $50 to $500 | ||
| May 15 | 10:51 PM GMT-5 | F2 | Tippecanoe, IN | 0.1 | 10 | $500 to $5,000 | ||
| May 15 | 11:30 PM GMT-5 | F2 | Clinton, IN | 0.1 | 10 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| May 15 | 12:20 AM GMT-5 | F1 | Shelby, TN | 0.1 | 10 |
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.