EF2 tornado, Vaughn to Best, Arkansas, May 26, 2024

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 26, 2024

Touchdown

1:46 AM CDT (06:46 UTC)

Lifted

2:00 AM CDT (07:00 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

7.4 miles (11.9 km)

Path width

3,000 yards (2743 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$80 million

County

Benton County

Touchdown point

36.334, -94.200

Lift-off point

36.361, -94.081

Record number

2405260046-01

90 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TSA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 122 mph.

• Six storage buildings destroyed; no anchor bolts - nails into slab
• Concentrated high end damage trees snapped, uprooted. Some trees on houses. Power lines hanging.
• Concentrated damage along 127.
• Uproots and snapped limbs along road nearby.

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

Severe thunderstorms developed over western Oklahoma during the afternoon of the 25th, along a sharpening dry line, and moved east across Oklahoma during the evening, and across northwestern Arkansas during the early morning hours of the 26th. The atmosphere east of the dry line across Oklahoma and western Arkansas was moist and very unstable. Wind fields above the ground and deep layer wind shear strengthened during the afternoon through the early morning hours of the 26th, as an upper level disturbance translated into the Southern Plains. Additionally, low level wind shear increased late in the evening and continued very strong into the early morning hours of the 26th. These conditions were very supportive for the development of supercell thunderstorms. One of these supercells became particularly intense and long-tracked as it moved across northeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas, producing multiple tornadoes, several of which were strong. Large hail to baseball size and swaths of damaging straight-line wind also occurred, resulting in considerable damage.

This tornado developed west of N Tycoon Road and moved northeast across Bush Road, and W Centerton Road. It damaged the roofs of homes and businesses, and uprooted trees. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 90 to 100 mph.

This tornado developed over Paw Paw Hollow, south of Byers Road. It moved northeast, turned to the north-northeast, and then finally to the north and dissipated north of Bethlehem Road. It severely damaged a home, damaged about eight other homes, destroyed outbuildings, and snapped or uprooted numerous trees. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 115 to 125 mph.

This tornado developed along SE Walton Blvd, west of SE Dodson Road. It quickly widened as it crossed I-49 moving to the southeast. The tornado continued to widen as it turned east, then east-northeast, crossing S Dixieland Road and Highway 94 at over 1.5 miles wide. It moved northeast after crossing N Arkansas Street, and dissipated in the hilly terrain east of Grambling Road. Nearly 600 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed by this tornado, and thousands of trees were snapped or uprooted. Many power poles were snapped. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 115 to 125 mph.

This tornado began approximately one mile south of War Eagle along County Road 303, where numerous trees were uprooted, with some large trunks snapped. The tornado moved northeast where it crossed Highway 12, damaging a mobile home, downing power lines and snapping and uprooting trees. The tornado then crossed Highway 127 where it uprooted trees onto homes, knocked down power lines, and snapped large trunks before dissipating. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 100 to 110 mph.

This is the first segment of a two-segment tornado. This tornado began in southeast Benton County near Highway 12, where it uprooted and snapped trees as it moved northeast toward the Benton/Madison County line. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 100 to 110 mph. The tornado continued into Madison County.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS TSA issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:26 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:05 UTC and running to 10:00 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 06:00 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 Springfield radar (KSGF), 119 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:43 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 2024 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 of them

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.