EF0 tornado, Belton to Mc Caskill, Arkansas, March 10, 2010

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 mph

   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

EF0

Date

March 10, 2010

Touchdown

4:17 PM CST (22:17 UTC)

Lifted

4:23 PM CST (22:23 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

2.4 miles (3.8 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hempstead County

Touchdown point

33.912, -93.700

Lift-off point

33.932, -93.666

Record number

1003101617-01

A very dry airmass across the Southern Plains on the morning of March 10th became a moderately moist and unstable airmass during the afternoon and evening of March 10th as a vigorous upper level storm system approached the region from the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle. This storm system was accompanied by a strong dry line that moved eastward out of North Central Texas during the afternoon hours of March 10th. Strong shear was present in the upper and mid levels of the atmosphere such that several of the storms took on supercellular characteristics. A tornado was produced from one of these storms in Southwest Arkansas northwest of Hope, Arkansas. These storms were prolific hail producers with hail ranging anywhere from pea size the baseball size. The storms dissipated during the late night hours of March 10th across Southern Arkansas and North Central Louisiana.

The tornado downed several trees along and west of West Hempstead 40 Road and moved northeast across Highway 371 where it downed several large trees and the powerlines adjacent to the highway.

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

31 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:46 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:28 UTC and running to 02:59 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, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:43 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), 164 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:18 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 2010 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.