Tornadoes · United States · Arkansas · 2022

EF0 tornado, Mc Dougal to Pollard, Arkansas, March 6, 2022

From Mc Dougal to Pollard, this EF0 tornado ran 6.4 miles across Clay County on March 6, 2022, touching down at 5:28 PM 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
March 6, 2022
Touchdown
5:28 PM CST (23:28 UTC)
Lifted
5:38 PM CST (23:38 UTC)
On the ground
10 minutes
Path length
6.4 miles (10.3 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Clay County
Touchdown point
36.407, -90.394
Lift-off point
36.477, -90.319
Record number
2203061728-01

The damage survey

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MEG and NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 65 mph.

  • Video of tornado over open field. No damage.

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

Scattered thunderstorms developed across Northeast Arkansas in the warm sector south of a stalled front across southeast Missouri. A couple of weak tornadoes occurred and straight-line winds caused isolated damage.

An intermittent tornado tracked through open fields.

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

The warnings

24 minutes of warning. NWS MEG issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:04 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:21 UTC and running to 01:58 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:21 UTC01:58 UTCTornado WatchMEG
23:04 UTC23:30 UTCTornado WarningMEG
23:06 UTC23:30 UTCTornado WarningMEG
23:28 UTC23:50 UTCTornado WarningMEG
01:58 UTC08:00 UTCTornado WatchMEG

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 19:48 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), 12:00Z

11.5 hours before the tornado, 183 km from the path. March 6, 2022.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Little Rock, AR at 12:00Z on 2022-03-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 375 joules per kilogram, CIN -37, lifted condensation level 835 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Little Rock, AR at 12:00Z on 2022-03-06The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 177 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 43 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
375 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-37 J/kg
Surface CAPE
392 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
835 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
43 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
32 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
177 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
143 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.3
Supercell composite
2.2
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 00:00Z

0.5 hours after it, 183 km from the path. March 7, 2022.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Little Rock, AR at 00:00Z on 2022-03-07Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 449 joules per kilogram, CIN -29, lifted condensation level 1244 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Little Rock, AR at 00:00Z on 2022-03-07The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 249 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 55 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
449 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-29 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2568 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1244 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
55 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
249 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
381 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.7
Supercell composite
16.6
0-3 km lapse rate
7.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Memphis radar (KNQA), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:26 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
23:28 UTCTORNADO2 Ne HickoriaClay, ARCORRECTS PREVIOUS TORNADO REPORT FROM 2 NE HICKORIA. BRIEF, RAIN-WRAPPED TORNADO SOUTHWEST OF MCDOUGAL.

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 March 6, 2022

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 62:05 AM ESTEF0Cass, IN0.425$15,000
March 64:21 AM ESTEF0Darke, OH2.9100$150,000
March 64:23 AM ESTEF0Shelby, OH2.5100$100,000
March 63:54 PM CSTEF0Craighead, AR2.550
March 65:18 PM CSTEF1Pope, AR15.6600$50,000
March 65:35 PM CSTEF0Butler, MO0.150
March 66:26 PM CSTEF1Stone, AR2.4200$40,000
March 67:17 PM CSTEF2Izard, AR11.38005$405,000
March 68:17 PM CSTEF1Randolph, AR2.4150$200,000

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.