EF1 tornado, Center Ridge, Arkansas, May 1, 2011

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

May 1, 2011

Touchdown

7:13 PM CDT (00:13 UTC)

Lifted

7:15 PM CDT (00:15 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$35,000

County

Conway County

Touchdown point

35.376, -92.566

Lift-off point

35.381, -92.550

Record number

1105011813-01

A nearly stationary front, extending from southwest Arkansas to the east central part of the state, served as a trigger for severe weather on the 1st. The front was also responsible for heavy to excessive rainfall amounts, which began on April 30th and continued through May 2nd. The rain triggered flash flooding, which added to the areal flooding and river flooding already occurring. Thus, additional rainfall was contributed to the Great Flood of 2011. Some of the larger rainfall amounts from April 30th to May 2nd included 12.52 inches at Marche, 12.00 inches at Maumelle, 10.50 inches 2.4 miles east-southeast of Mayflower, 10.40 inches at Walton Heights in Little Rock, 9.60 inches at Clarendon, 9.49 inches at North Little Rock, 8.26 inches 4 miles southwest of Cabot, 8.05 inches at Mount Ida, 7.39 inches 5 miles southeast of Mount Ida, 7.21 inches at Georgetown, and 7.03 inches at the Hot Springs Airport. Stations reporting more than 6 inches included the Stuttgart Airport, 3.6 miles west of Searcy, Des Arc, McCrory, Little Rock Air Force Base, Langley, and Adams Field in Little Rock. Stations reporting more than 5 inches included the Newport Airport, Washita, Nimrod Dam, Brinkley, 6 miles southeast of Clinton, 1 mile east of Hopper, Mammoth Spring, 2 miles northwest of Augusta, the Batesville Livestock experiment station, 1 mile southeast of Oden, Grubbs, 3.5 miles east-northeast of Pottsville, the Newport Water Plant, Hot Springs National Park, 3 miles northeast of Botkinburg, Dardanelle, and Hardy.

An EF1 tornado in the Center Ridge area blew down trees. One of the falling trees damaged the roof of a house and knocked the back porch off the same house. Another falling tree landed on the house across the street. Temperatures were in the lower 50's at the time of the tornado.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS LZK issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:08 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:32 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 Little Rock radar (KLZK), 66 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:13 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 2011 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

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.