Tornadoes · United States · Arkansas · 2016
EF0 tornado, Dolton to Swan Lake, Arkansas, March 13, 2016
From Dolton to Swan Lake, this EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Jefferson County on March 13, 2016, touching down at 6:32 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $8,000 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 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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
- EF0
- Date
- March 13, 2016
- Touchdown
- 6:32 PM CDT (23:32 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:33 PM CDT (23:33 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (0.9 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $8,000
- County
- Jefferson County
- Touchdown point
- 34.145, -91.745
- Lift-off point
- 34.152, -91.740
- Record number
- 1603131732-01
The damage survey
4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LZK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 83 mph.
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
Severe thunderstorms produced very large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes during the afternoon and evening.
The tornado was spawned just to the east of a home, with bricks removed from the east side of that structure. Several trees were also blown down in the vicinity of the house. The tornado tracked toward the Arkansas River, lifting as it approached the levee on the south side of the river. There was also video confirmation of this tornado from several sources.
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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:10 UTC and running to 00:14 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:10 UTC | 00:14 UTC | Tornado Watch | LZK |
| 23:22 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LZK |
| 23:27 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LZK |
| 23:39 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | LZK |
| 00:14 UTC | 03:37 UTC | Tornado Watch | LZK |
| 01:32 UTC | 01:53 UTC | Tornado Warning | 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 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 19:46 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.
Little Rock, AR (KBYH), 12:00Z
11.5 hours before the tornado, 181 km from the path. March 13, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -107740 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 840 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 63 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 55 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.4 K/km
The radar
The Little Rock radar (KLZK), 90 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:32 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:27 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Se Moscow | Jefferson, AR | ONE HOUSE HAD ROOF DAMAGE AND ONE END OF THE HOME WAS RIPPED OFF. |
| 23:32 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Swan Lake | Jefferson, AR | THREE HOMES SUSTAINED ROOF DAMAGE AND TWO HOMES SUSTAINED STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. |
| 00:09 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | De Witt | Arkansas, AR | POWER LINES WERE BLOWN DOWN NEAR DE WITT. |
| 00:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Crocketts Bluff | Arkansas, AR | A COMBINE WAS FLIPPED OVER ON SAM DEBERRY ROAD. |
| 01:35 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Gould | Lincoln, AR | TREES WERE BLOWN DOWN. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 13, 2016
10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 13 | 3:56 PM CDT | EF1 | Scott, AR | 4.8 | 850 | $150,000 | ||
| March 13 | 4:48 PM CDT | EF1 | Montgomery, AR | 1.7 | 180 | $200,000 | ||
| March 13 | 6:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Perry, AR | 1.7 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| March 13 | 7:00 PM CDT | EF0 | Arkansas, AR | 1.3 | 50 | |||
| March 13 | 7:32 PM CDT | EF0 | Arkansas, AR | 1.2 | 50 | $8,000 | ||
| March 13 | 7:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Phillips, AR | 2.9 | 100 | $25,000 | ||
| March 13 | 8:16 PM CDT | EF0 | Phillips, AR | 3.8 | 125 | $35,000 | ||
| March 13 | 9:10 PM CDT | EF1 | Cross, AR | 2.0 | 125 | $25,000 | ||
| March 13 | 9:15 PM CDT | EF1 | Chicot, AR | 9.0 | 300 | 1 | $2.5 million | |
| March 13 | 10:13 PM CDT | EF0 | Bolivar, MS | 0.5 | 50 | $40,000 |
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.