EF1 tornado, Algoa to Midway, Arkansas, March 28, 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

March 28, 2020

Touchdown

4:18 PM CDT (21:18 UTC)

Lifted

4:24 PM CDT (21:24 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

5.3 miles (8.6 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Jackson County

Touchdown point

35.507, -91.118

Lift-off point

35.563, -91.052

Record number

2003281518-01

35 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 110 mph.

• Several nearby splinters/planks of wood driven into the ground.
• Tiller .25 miles from home. Pieces of wood driven into ground.
• The building is a small church, closest in construction to a single family home.
• Tornado crossed the county road here, mostly fields, but consistent debris spread across the fields.

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

It was still very mild on the 28th, and there was at least some potential of tornadoes (although tornadoes were most likely from Iowa to Illinois and Indiana). Precipitation behaved for the bulk of the day (not much happening). A large area of showers crossed Arkansas during the afternoon, and there were rumbles of thunder at times. But as rain headed into eastern sections of the state, things got interesting.||Rotation picked up in one storm near Tupelo (Jackson County), and a Tornado Warning was issued at 259 pm CST. About twenty minutes later, there were reports of roofs off of homes between Algoa and Amagon (both in Jackson County). Farm equipment storage buildings were dismantled, and trees were uprooted.||A tornado was to blame, and was given a rating of EF1 (110 mph winds) by the National Weather Service in Little Rock (Pulaski County). The tornado dissipated close to the Poinsett County line (a path length of just over five miles).

Law enforcement reported several power lines down and a few roofs missing from homes between Algoa and Amagon. Farm machinery was tossed into a field.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS LZK issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:59 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:10 UTC and running to 00:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:06 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), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Memphis radar (KNQA), 112 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:19 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

20 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.