Tornadoes · United States · Arkansas · 2022
EF0 tornado, Cary, Arkansas, February 22, 2022
This EF0 tornado ran 2.8 miles across Craighead County on February 22, 2022, touching down at 5:24 AM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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
- February 22, 2022
- Touchdown
- 5:24 AM CST (11:24 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:28 AM CST (11:28 UTC)
- On the ground
- 4 minutes
- Path length
- 2.8 miles (4.5 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Craighead County
- Touchdown point
- 35.714, -90.742
- Lift-off point
- 35.728, -90.696
- Record number
- 2202220524-01
The damage survey
2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MEG, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0.
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
An unseasonably warm and moist airmass pushed into the Mid-South by early morning on February 22, 2022. A line of strong to severe thunderstorms developed ahead of an approaching cold front producing damaging winds across eastern Arkansas and northwest Tennessee.
A weak tornado tracked across open fields west of Bay causing little or no damage.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
18 minutes of warning. NWS MEG issued a tornado warning for this county at 11:06 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 11:30 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 09:52 UTC and running to 13:30 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06:00 UTC | 16:46 UTC | Flood Watch | MEG |
| 09:52 UTC | 13:30 UTC | Tornado Watch | MEG |
| 10:46 UTC | 11:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MEG |
| 11:06 UTC | 11:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | MEG |
| 11:27 UTC | 11:59 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MEG |
| 11:52 UTC | 15:00 UTC | Flood Advisory | MEG |
| 11:52 UTC | 12:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MEG |
| 12:23 UTC | 14:15 UTC | Flood Advisory | MEG |
| 13:19 UTC | 19:15 UTC | Flood Warning | MEG |
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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:47 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 (KLZK), 00:00Z
11.4 hours before the tornado, 121 km from the path. February 22, 2022.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 764 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -23 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 446 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 75 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 45 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 445 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 549 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 12.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.4 K/km
Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 12:00Z
0.6 hours after it, 121 km from the path. February 22, 2022.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 511 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -16 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 268 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 544 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 76 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 52 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 487 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 517 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.7
- Supercell composite
- 7.5
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
The radar
The Memphis radar (KNQA), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:22 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10:57 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Sedgwick | Lawrence, AR | A ROOF PARTIALLY BLOWN OFF OF A MOBILE HOME AND SEVERAL TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN ON CYPRESS STREET IN SEDGWICK, AR. |
| 10:58 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Sedgwick | Lawrence, AR | REPORT OF A TREE THAT HAS FALLEN ON A HOUSE IN SEDGWICK, AR. |
| 11:06 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 W Paragould | Greene, AR | LARGE TREE DOWN AT STANFORD IN ROAD. |
| 11:20 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Marmaduke | Greene, AR | MULTIPLE TREES/LIMBS DOWN IN ROADS. |
| 11:24 UTC | TORNADO | 3 N Greenfield | Craighead, AR | TORNADIC DEBRIS SIGNATURE NOTED BETWEEN OTWELL AND BAY IN SOUTHERN CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. |
| 11:27 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Nne Wynne | Cross, AR | REPORT FROM CROSS CO SHERRIFF: TREE HAS FALLEN ACROSS HWY NEAR US 64 & 64B. SEMI TRUCK CRASHED INTO SAID TREE. |
| 11:55 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 W Paragould | Greene, AR | LARGE TREE DOWN AT STANFORD IN ROAD. |
| 11:55 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Marmaduke | Greene, AR | MULTIPLE TREES/LIMBS DOWN IN ROADS. |
| 13:11 UTC | FLOOD | 8 W Trumann | Poinsett, AR | HWY 163 AT HWY 69 JUST SOUTH OF JONESBORO COMPLETELY UNDERWATER. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of February 22, 2022
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 22 | 6:28 AM CST | EF0 | Fulton, KY | 0.7 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| February 22 | 7:22 PM CST | EF0 | Madison, AL | 3.1 | 110 |
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.