F1 tornado, Flippin to Henderson, Arkansas, April 19, 2003

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 mphthis tornado

   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

F1

Date

April 19, 2003

Touchdown

12:43 AM CDT (05:43 UTC)

Path length

16.0 miles (25.7 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Marion and Baxter counties

Touchdown point

36.200, -92.520

Lift-off point

36.420, -92.280

Record number

82

A weak tornado touched down about 7 miles southeast of Flippin and traveled to the northeast into Baxter County. Damage consisted of a number of large trees being blown down.

A weak tornado moved from Marion County into Baxter County about 3.1 miles southeast of Gassville. The tornado traveled 15 miles before lifting 7.5 miles northeast of Mountain Home. The tornado passed through the southern portions of Mountain Home. An unoccupied mobile home was destroyed, and debris from the mobile home knocked an adjacent mobile home off its foundation. A number of homes were also damaged, mostly due to falling trees. Shingles were taken off a number of roofs. An apartment building under construction was damaged and a garage at one home collapsed. One vehicle was destroyed by a falling tree and several others were damaged by falling limbs or flying debris. Some power poles were knocked down and dozens of trees along the tornado track were blown down.

A weak tornado touched down 3 miles northeast of Henderson and traveled to the northeast into Fulton County. The thunderstorm spawning the tornado is the same storm that produced a tornado earlier in Mountain Home. In eastern Baxter County, an old community center which had stood for more than 100 years was flattened. This occurred near the Cumi community. One house had the back portion of its roof damaged. A shed was blown down and several vehicles were damaged by flying tin.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:05 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.

The Springfield radar (KSGF), 136 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:43 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 2003 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

9 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.