EF1 tornado, Clifty, Arkansas, March 25, 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

March 25, 2015

Touchdown

5:26 PM CDT (22:26 UTC)

Lifted

5:33 PM CDT (22:33 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

3.9 miles (6.3 km)

Path width

650 yards (594 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Madison County

Touchdown point

36.263, -93.831

Lift-off point

36.279, -93.763

Record number

1503251626-01

13 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TSA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 97 mph.

• 3 chicken houses destroyed; owner saw tornado develop to the sw
• several trees uprooted this area
• convergence noted in tree fall pattern this area
• numerous uprooted trees in this area

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

Severe thunderstorms developed during the afternoon hours to the east of a surface low pressure system located over southwestern Oklahoma and near a stationary frontal boundary that was draped across northeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas. Several of these storms developed supercell characteristics due to a very unstable air mass that was in place over the region coupled with strong vertical wind shear. These supercells produced a couple tornadoes, hail up to baseball size, and wind gusts to around 85 mph. ||The storms evolved into a line during the evening hours and moved swiftly across northwestern and west central Arkansas, producing wind damage and hail to golfball size. ||Locally heavy rainfall as a result of the storms moving repeatedly across the same locations produced localized flash flooding. A flash flood fatality occurred in Carroll County when a vehicle was driven into flood waters and was swept off the road.

A tornado developed northwest of Clifty, where it severely damaged three chicken houses and damaged a home. It moved east-northeast damaging an additional chicken house, several homes, and snapped trees along Highway 127. The tornado then damaged a mobile home, another chicken house, and trees as it crossed Highway 23. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 95 to 105 mph.

A second tornado developed west of Highway 23 to the south of the dissipating tornado northeast of Clifty. A home was damaged, a barn was destroyed, and large tree limbs were snapped by this tornado. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 75 to 85 mph.

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

12 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:14 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:17 UTC and running to 02:21 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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 Springfield radar (KSGF), 113 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:27 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

9 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.