EF1 tornado, Delta to Waterloo, Arkansas, December 27, 2015

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

December 27, 2015

Touchdown

4:36 PM CST (22:36 UTC)

Lifted

4:44 PM CST (22:44 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

3.9 miles (6.2 km)

Path width

353 yards (323 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Nevada County

Touchdown point

33.475, -93.282

Lift-off point

33.530, -93.270

Record number

1512271636-01

30 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• numerous trees snapped and uprooted
• numerous trees/powerlines snapped
• numerous treees snapped and uprooted
• shingles removed from one side of home

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A strong negatively tilted upper level trough slowly moved into the Central and Southern Plains during the morning of December 27th. This trough of low pressure was accompanied by a strong subtropical jet stream which provided abundant lift necessary for the development of widespread showers and thunderstorms. The trough was able to draw up not only Gulf of Mexico moisture but also Eastern Pacific moisture and with a very slow movement to the activity once it developed, the end result was widespread flooding across a large portion of Northeast Texas, Southeast Oklahoma, Southwest Arkansas and Northwest Louisiana. A very unstable airmass for late December was present across the region with a very strongly wind sheared environment. Discrete storms developed across the region ahead of an eventual line of strong to severe thunderstorms. Some of these discrete storms produced tornadoes across the region with several storms producing strong and damaging wind gusts as well.

An NWS Storm Survey team concluded that the damage near Willisville, Arkansas was consistent with that of an EF-1 tornado. This tornado snapped and uprooted numerous trees along its path. Several outbuildings were destroyed and several homes had minor to moderate roof damage as well.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:13 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:50 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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 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), 128 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:38 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 2015 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.