EF3 tornado, Junction City to New London, Arkansas, February 24, 2007

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mphthis tornado

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF3

Date

February 24, 2007

Touchdown

1:35 PM CST (19:35 UTC)

Lifted

1:52 PM CST (19:52 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

26.0 miles (41.8 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

5

County

Union County

Touchdown point

33.020, -92.730

Lift-off point

33.207, -92.317

Record number

0702241335-01

A vigorous upper level storm system moved into the southern plains and lower mississippi valley during the morning and afternoon hours of the 24th. The atmosphere became very unstable ahead of this system as a dryline moved into southwest Arkansas during the late morning and afternoon hours. Severe thunderstorms developed rapidly in the ustable airmass and enough shear was present such that tornadoes developed across portions of southwest Arkansas.

A strong tornado developed under a supercell thunderstorm which moved northeast across the county. Damage was largely confined to heavily wooded areas with less than 20 structures sustaining damage. Six of these structures received heavy damage near the community of Strong, Arkansas. Numerous snapped and fallen large trees were also observed.|The extent of the damage ranged from shingles off some homes to others completely demolished. Of the 6 homes that were severly damaged...two were mobile homes. The tornado began in extreme southwest Union County near Junction City where a metal roof was blown off a pharmacy on Route 167. The tornado produced sporadic tree damage along Welloo and Welch roads. Moving northeast...the tornado downed additional trees across Caledonia and Iron Mountain roads. The tornado continued in a northeast direction...crossing Hwy 82 and intensified as it crossed Old Strong highway. Here a well build brick home was mostly demolished. The tornado traveled a half mile east and demolished a double wide trailer blowing the debris 150 to 200 yards downstream. Several other homes were affected from this storm before the storm lifted near the community of New London. Five injuries were reported from this tornado with no fatalities. At the most damaging point of the storm after it crossed Hwy 82...the storm was rated an EF3 on the new enhanced Fujita scale. A monetary damage amount was not available for this publication. |The Damage Indicator for the event was (DI): FR 12 while the Degree of Damage for the event was (DOD): 8.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:28 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:21 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:48 UTC and running to 00:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:40 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 144 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:35 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

17 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.