EF0 tornado, Mc Gehee Muni Arpt, Arkansas, March 17, 2021

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

March 17, 2021

Touchdown

4:37 PM CDT (21:37 UTC)

Lifted

4:38 PM CDT (21:38 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Desha County

Touchdown point

33.620, -91.380

Lift-off point

33.620, -91.380

Record number

2103171537-01

In Arkansas, the fireworks started early (during the predawn hours) on the 17th. Isolated storms unloaded large hail, including golf ball size hail just east of Scranton (Logan County), and quarter size hail at Atkins (Pope County) and Johnsville (Bradley County). After that, it turned into a bunch of heavy rain.||Two to more than three inches of rain dumped from Newport (Jackson County) to North Little Rock (Pulaski County). Vehicles stalled in high water, and people had to be rescued. Several roads were closed. Water was also over roads in North Little Rock and Sherwood (both in Pulaski County). At the latter location, a pond near a police station overflowed, and there was water everywhere.||At Searcy (White County), lightning struck a clinic and caused damage to electronic equipment. Power was knocked out to the facility temporarily.||In southeast Arkansas, rotation ramped up in one storm, and a Tornado Warning was disseminated at 430 pm CDT for eastern Drew and southern Desha Counties. At 437 pm CDT, a brief tornado (rated EF0) was witnessed in a farm field about a mile southeast of McGehee (Desha County). It was the first tornado of 2021 in the state.

A very brief, rope-like tornado occurred in a farm field about a mile southeast of McGehee. No visible structure damage was observed and the time was based on radar.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS LZK issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:30 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:15 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 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 21:37 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 Little Rock radar (KLZK), 158 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:37 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 2021 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

32 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.