Tornadoes · United States · Arkansas · 2015
EF1 tornado, Green Hill to Barkada, Arkansas, December 27, 2015
From Green Hill to Barkada, this EF1 tornado ran 5.7 miles across Drew County on December 27, 2015, touching down at 6:06 PM CST and reaching 150 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- December 27, 2015
- Touchdown
- 6:06 PM CST (00:06 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:17 PM CST (00:17 UTC)
- On the ground
- 11 minutes
- Path length
- 5.7 miles (9.2 km)
- Path width
- 150 yards (137 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $50,000
- Crop damage
- $10,000
- County
- Drew County
- Touchdown point
- 33.584, -91.956
- Lift-off point
- 33.666, -91.939
- Record number
- 1512271806-01
The damage survey
23 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LZK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 104 mph.
- Tree fell southeast onto carport.
- Metal roof panels from school walkway canopy removed.
- Old oak tree snapped then fall onto a barn. Tree was rotting/becoming hollow.
- Roof from the home was thrown to the northwest.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A slow moving storm system approached Arkansas on Christmas Day, bringing several rounds of rainfall and some severe weather to the state from the 25th to the 28th. Northwest sections of the area saw several inches of rainfall, which resulted in many reports of flash flooding. Very warm conditions were seen across southern sections of the state, where some severe weather, including some weak tornadoes, was observed.
A roof of a home was blown off, landing onto a shed to the northwest of that home. Several trees were snapped or uprooted along the path.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:47 UTC and running to 02:33 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 UTC | 12:08 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | LZK |
| 20:47 UTC | 02:33 UTC | Tornado Watch | LZK |
| 07:39 UTC | 11:30 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | LZK |
| 08:25 UTC | 09:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LZK |
| 11:13 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Flood Warning | LZK |
| 12:00 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Wind Advisory | 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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.
Shreveport, LA (KBAD), 00:00Z
0.1 hours before the tornado, 211 km from the path. December 28, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 692 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -10 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 827 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1047 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 61 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 38 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 360 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 462 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.9
- Supercell composite
- 9.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.6 K/km
The radar
The Little Rock radar (KLZK), 138 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:05 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:05 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 W Hampton | Calhoun, AR | EMERGENCY MANAGERS REPORTED STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO HOUSE AROUND LITTLE BAY ROAD. |
| 22:10 UTC | TORNADO | 5 W Hampton | Calhoun, AR | CALHOUN SHERIFFS OFFICE REPORTS TORNADO ON GROUND WEST OF HAMPTON. |
| 22:10 UTC | TORNADO | Calhoun | Lincoln, AR | CALHOUN SHERIFFS OFFICE REPORTS TORNADO ON GROUND IN THE CALHOUN AREA...WEST OF HAMPTON. |
| 23:06 UTC | TORNADO | Nw Hermitage | Bradley, AR | NWS STORM SURVEY REVEALED AN EF1 TORNADO...WHICH STRETCHED FROM HERMITAGE TO SW OF WARREN...OR 2 MILES NE OF FARMVILLE. MANY PINE TREES WERE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. A SHED WAS DESTROYED AND DAMAGED TO A HOME...CHICKEN HOUSE |
| 23:10 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Hermitage | Bradley, AR | EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT REPORTS DAMAGE TO HERMITAGE SCHOOL. SEVERAL ROADS IN THE AREA CLOSED DUE TO DOWNED TREES AND POWER LINES. |
| 23:10 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Wilmar | Drew, AR | EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT REPORTS A HOUSE WITH ROOF DAMAGE IN THE AREA. |
| 00:06 UTC | TORNADO | 3 Ssw Wilmar | Drew, AR | NWS STORM SURVEY REVEALED AN EF-1 TORNADO...WHICH KNOCKED DOWN SEVERAL PINE TREES. SOME PINE TREES WERE SNAPPED...AND A ROOF WAS RIPPED OFF A HOME AND THROWN TO THE NW ONTO A SHED. |
| 00:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Wilmar | Drew, AR | EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT REPORTS HOUSE WITH ROOF DAMAGE IN THE AREA. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 27, 2015
12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 27 | 3:06 PM CST | EF0 | Bowie, TX | 2.9 | 75 | $15,000 | ||
| December 27 | 3:24 PM CST | EF1 | Upshur, TX | 8.0 | 1,338 | $45,000 | ||
| December 27 | 3:32 PM CST | EF1 | Calhoun, AR | 7.1 | 100 | $150,000 | ||
| December 27 | 3:36 PM CST | EF1 | Hempstead, AR | 0.8 | 350 | $15,000 | ||
| December 27 | 3:56 PM CST | EF1 | Calhoun, AR | 7.2 | 400 | $50,000 | ||
| December 27 | 4:36 PM CST | EF1 | Nevada, AR | 3.9 | 353 | $100,000 | ||
| December 27 | 4:39 PM CST | EF2 | Harrison, TX | 7.8 | 300 | $300,000 | ||
| December 27 | 5:06 PM CST | EF1 | Bradley, AR | 7.1 | 200 | $75,000 | ||
| December 27 | 5:09 PM CST | EF1 | Cass, TX | 1.3 | 200 | |||
| December 27 | 8:10 PM CST | EF1 | Caddo Parish, LA | 0.1 | 41 | $5,000 | ||
| December 27 | 8:16 PM CST | EF1 | Caddo Parish, LA | 2.3 | 144 | $250,000 | ||
| December 27 | 11:10 PM CST | EF1 | Claiborne Parish, LA | 0.2 | 21 |
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.