F2 tornado, Patterson to Mc Crory, Arkansas, March 1, 1997

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   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.

4. 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.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. 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.

7. 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.

Rating

F2

Date

March 1, 1997

Touchdown

4:54 PM CST (22:54 UTC)

Path length

12.0 miles (19.3 km)

Path width

880 yards (805 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Woodruff County

Touchdown point

35.250, -91.270

Lift-off point

35.350, -91.080

Record number

171

A tornado touched down about 1.5 miles west of Patterson and moved northeastward. The tornado crossed Highway 64 about a mile northwest of Patterson where some trees were snapped off and a roadside park sustained damage. 3 miles north of McCrory on Highway 17, the tornado destroyed a house trailer and damaged some power poles. About a half mile north of the intersection of Highways 37 and 269, the tornado reached F2 strength, heavily damaging some homes and uprooting a number of trees. Near the intersection of Highways 37 and 145, a duck hunting club was destroyed and a farm shop and grain bins were damaged. The last damage noted in Woodruff County was just off Highway 145 where a frame house was destroyed. The tornado exited Woodruff County at 511 pm CST.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:05 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

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.

Batesville (Awos) (BVX), 64 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Little Rock radar (KLZK), 112 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:52 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

55 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.