EF1 tornado, Hickory Ridge, Arkansas, August 27, 2020

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

August 27, 2020

Touchdown

7:13 PM CDT (00:13 UTC)

Lifted

7:17 PM CDT (00:17 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.1 miles (3.5 km)

Path width

80 yards (73 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Cross County

Touchdown point

35.380, -90.990

Lift-off point

35.410, -91.000

Record number

2008271813-01

10 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 85 mph.

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

Powerful Hurricane Laura struck the Gulf Coast on August 26, 2020. The remnants of Laura moved through the Mid-South on August 27th and August 28th. The first band of showers and thunderstorms tracked across eastern Arkansas during the evening hours of August 27th causing wind damage and a half dozen weak tornadoes. An additional band of showers and thunderstorms developed across north Mississippi during the morning hours of August 28th as the system was departing. A weak morning tornado was reported near Oxford followed by a couple of incidents of wind damage over northeast Mississippi during the afternoon and isolated flash flooding later that evening.

A tornado developed southeast of Hickory Ridge and moved north-northwest through town. An airplane hangar was damaged west of County Road 259. The tornado damaged trees and several roofs and awnings as it moved through Hickory Ridge. The tornado dissipated just northwest of town.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS MEG issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:09 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:52 UTC and running to 03:55 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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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.

Newport (M19), 32 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Memphis radar (KNQA), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:10 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 2020 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

14 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.