Tornadoes · United States · Arkansas · 2001
F2 tornado, Amagon to Uno, Arkansas, February 24, 2001
From Amagon to Uno, this F2 tornado ran 11.0 miles across Jackson and Poinsett counties on February 24, 2001, touching down at 5:34 PM CST and reaching 200 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $70,000 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 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.
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 mph
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
- F2
- Date
- February 24, 2001
- Touchdown
- 5:34 PM CST (23:34 UTC)
- Path length
- 11.0 miles (17.7 km)
- Path width
- 200 yards (183 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $70,000
- Counties
- Jackson and Poinsett counties
- Touchdown point
- 35.570, -91.080
- Lift-off point
- 35.700, -91.000
- Record number
- 15
What the Weather Service recorded
A strong tornado was spawned in eastern Jackson County about 1.6 miles east of Amagon. The tornado moved quickly northeast, and heavily damaged a mobile home. The tornado downed a tree onto another mobile home, and damaged or destroyed several sheds, carports and outbuildings. Also, there was some minor roof damage at a few homes. Trees and power lines were also downed. The tornado travelled about 7 miles before exiting Jackson County about 2 miles east of Grubbs. The tornado moved into Poinsett County, which is in the Memphis County Warning Area.
The tornado moved into Poinsett county from Jackson county and continued to move northeast.One mobile home was demolished. Four other mobile homes were overturned. A few houses were damaged. One shed was blown over. A few trees were knocked down.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
11 minutes of warning. NWS LZK issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:23 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:01 UTC | 23:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LZK |
| 23:23 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | LZK |
| 00:18 UTC | 01:05 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LZK |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:12 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 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 (KLZK), 12:00Z
11.6 hours before the tornado, 133 km from the path. February 24, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -72518 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 485 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 55 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 43 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 456 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 552 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 2.7 K/km
Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 00:00Z
0.4 hours after it, 133 km from the path. February 25, 2001.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 999 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -16 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1090 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 634 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 60 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 55 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 420 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 489 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 3.2
- Supercell composite
- 13.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.8 K/km
The radar
The Memphis radar (KNQA), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:36 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of February 24, 2001
20 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 24 | 3:24 PM CST | F1 | Webster, MO | 6.5 | 50 | $150,000 | ||
| February 24 | 3:31 PM CST | F2 | Pulaski, AR | 14.3 | 200 | 8 | ||
| February 24 | 1:50 PM PST | F0 | Orange, CA | 0.1 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| February 24 | 3:50 PM CST | F1 | Pulaski, AR | 2.2 | 85 | |||
| February 24 | 4:06 PM CST | F2 | Lonoke, AR | 8.0 | 300 | |||
| February 24 | 4:14 PM CST | F1 | White, AR | 7.0 | 100 | |||
| February 24 | 4:21 PM CST | F1 | Lonoke, AR | 9.0 | 60 | 3 | ||
| February 24 | 4:27 PM CST | F1 | White, AR | 3.5 | 40 | |||
| February 24 | 4:46 PM CST | F2 | Fulton, AR | 8.0 | 300 | 1 | 3 | |
| February 24 | 5:43 PM CST | F1 | Drew, AR | 5.5 | 100 | 1 | ||
| February 24 | 6:01 PM CST | F3 | Desha, AR | 42.0 | 300 | |||
| February 24 | 6:10 PM CST | F0 | Ashley, AR | 0.5 | 200 | $1,000 | ||
| February 24 | 6:13 PM CST | F1 | Lonoke, AR | 2.7 | 100 | |||
| February 24 | 6:25 PM CST | F2 | Prairie, AR | 12.7 | 200 | |||
| February 24 | 6:30 PM CST | F0 | Chicot, AR | 0.5 | 200 | $1,000 | ||
| February 24 | 6:35 PM CST | F2 | Washington, MS | 37.0 | 440 | $1.5 million | ||
| February 24 | 6:42 PM CST | F2 | Desha, AR | 9.0 | 200 | 2 | $50,000 | |
| February 24 | 8:20 PM CST | F0 | Humphreys, MS | 0.5 | 350 | $10,000 | ||
| February 24 | 8:37 PM CST | F3 | Leflore, MS | 22.0 | 400 | $2.3 million | ||
| February 24 | 9:35 PM CST | F3 | Calhoun, MS | 52.0 | 1,000 | 6 | 73 | $31 million |
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.