F0 tornado, Beebe, Arkansas, December 7, 2001

1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

   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 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.

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

F0

Date

December 7, 2001

Touchdown

7:53 PM CST (01:53 UTC)

Path length

6.0 miles (9.7 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

White County

Touchdown point

35.120, -91.900

Lift-off point

35.170, -91.800

Record number

585

The storm that produced a weak tornado in northwest Lonoke County spawned another weak tornado in White County. The tornado (F0) touched down about 3 miles north of Beebe and tracked northeast. The tornado had difficulty reaching the ground and skipped at times. Damage mostly consisted of tree tops, power lines and power poles...with some power outages occurring. The tornado moved 6 miles before dissipating around 2 miles north of Garner.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS LZK issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:30 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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.

NWS Little Rock, AR wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Dec 7, 2:00 PM CST, 5 hours 53 minutes earlier.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LITTLE ROCK AR
200 PM CST FRI DEC 7 2001

.SHORT TERM...MODELS IN VERY GOOD AGREEMENT THIS AFTERNOON WITH ONLY
MINOR DIFFERENCES NOTED THOUGH 60 HOURS. MODELS ARE ALSO CONSISTENT
WITH SLOWING DOWN THE LARGE SCALE FEATURES EVEN MORE SO RUN TO RUN
CONSISTENCY REMAINS GOOD. WITH NO GLARING DIFFERENCES TO DISTINGUISH
BETWEEN THE MODELS...A BLEND OF THEM SEEMS REASONABLE.

WATER VAPOR IMAGERY CONTINUES TO SHOW PLUME OF MOISTURE STRETCHING
FROM THE EASTERN PACIFIC OVER THE MID SOUTH TO THE EAST COAST.
SURFACE BOUNDARY REMAINS STALLED OUT ACROSS THE CENTRAL PART OF THE
STATE AS WIND FLOW ALOFT REMAINS PARALLEL TO IT. FRONT IS ILL
DEFINED WITH A DROP IN DEW POINTS REALLY THE ONLY WAY TO IDENTIFY
IT. FRONT SEEMS TO BE LOCATED FROM NORTH OF RUSSELLVILLE TO NORTH OF
JONESBORO. WEAK IMPULSE RIDING ALONG THIS FRONT CONTINUES TO
GENERATE SHOWERS AND STORMS...MAINLY OVER EASTERN PARTS OF THE
STATE. MUCH COOLER AIR OFF TO THE NORTH WILL BRING MUCH COOLER AND
DRIER AIR TO THE AREA ON SATURDAY.

BEFORE THAT TRANSITION...SURFACE LOW PRESSURE CONTINUES TO GET ITS
ACT TOGETHER OVER SOUTHERN OKLAHOMA. THIS LOW WILL TRACK ALONG THE
FRONT AND INTO WESTERN ARKANSAS BY LATE AFTERNOON. THE LOW WILL MOVE
NORTHEAST OVERNIGHT AND INTO NORTHERN TENN BY MORNING. CROSS
SECTIONS SHOW GOOD LOW LEVEL MOISTURE AND IMPRESSIVE LIFT ALONG WITH
HIGH PRECIPITABLE WATER IN PLACE OVERNIGHT. PREVIOUS RUNS WERE
CONFINING THE PRECIP TO MAINLY SOUTHERN ARKANSAS BUT BELIEVE IT WILL
BE A STATEWIDE EVENT WITH HIGHER AMOUNTS TO THE SOUTH INSTEAD. BEST
DYNAMICS OCCUR OVERNIGHT SO LIKELY POPS WILL BE INTRODUCED WITH
CLEARING MOVING FROM NORTHWEST TO SOUTHEAST SATURDAY. WILL HOLD ONTO
MINIMAL POPS EARLY ON SATURDAY OVER THE SOUTH UNTIL FRONT CLEARS THE
AREA. THE MUCH COOLER AIR WILL THEN BEGIN TO SPILL OVER THE AREA AS
NORTHWEST FLOW GETS ESTABLISHED. PRESSURE GRADIENT TIGHTENS SO WILL
CONTINUE TO MENTION BREEZY IN THE FORECAST. HIGH PRESSURE WILL THEN
BUILD OVER THE AREA SATURDAY AND INTO SUNDAY. THICKNESS VALUES DROP
SIGNIFICANTLY OVER THE WEEKEND AS STRONG H5 TROF SWINGS THROUGH. AVN
TEMPS SEEM MORE REASONABLE AND WILL GENERALLY BE FOLLOWED.

.EXTENDED...MODELS IN FAIRLY GOOD AGREEMENT WITH HIGH PRESSURE
CONTINUING INTO TUESDAY BEFORE THE NEXT SYSTEM BEARS DOWN FOR
WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY. MODELS SWING A TROF AND ASSOCIATED SURFACE
FRONT THROUGH THE AREA LATE WEDNESDAY WITH STRENGTH AND TIMING
DIFFERENCES GREAT ENOUGH TO CAUSE LOW CONFIDENCE. WILL SIMPLY
BROADBRUSH RAIN AND THUNDERSTORMS FOR BOTH DAYS 6 AND 7 AND HOPE THE
MODELS COME INTO BETTER AGREEMENT. FRM NUMBERS SEEM REASONABLE.

56

.LZK...NONE

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.

The Little Rock radar (KLZK), 51 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:53 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 2001 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.