EF0 tornado, Pollard, Arkansas, April 28, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF0, preliminary

Date

April 28, 2026

Touchdown

5:21 PM CDT (22:21 UTC)

Lifted

5:24 PM CDT (22:24 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.0 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Clay County

Touchdown point

36.459, -90.284

Lift-off point

36.442, -90.262

Highest wind the damage implies

80 mph

Surveyed by

NWS MEG

The office's name for it

Pollard, AR

Survey last edited

April 30, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

A brief EF0 tornado touched down near the intersection of CR 339 and CR 321 northwest of Pollard. When the tornado touched down, a large tree was uprooted, damaging an awning on a residential porch. The tornado quickly began to weaken after its initial touchdown, but not before ripping some metal roofing off a barn and blowing a few shingles off the roof of Trailer's Chapel General Baptist Church along CR 321. The tornado also caused minor tree damage along CR 328, lifting after crossing Highway 139. This survey was assisted by law enforcement camera footage.

Written by NWS MEG in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

15 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. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• Tornado crossed Hwy 139 before dissipating, according to eyewitnesses

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

A significant multi-day severe weather event affected the Mid-South as a deepening surface low and cold front traversed the central United States. On April 27, 2026, a northward-lifting warm front introduced tropical moisture, with dewpoints rising into the upper 60s and lower 70s. This environment, supported by a strong 500 mb jet streak, produced MLCAPE values exceeding 2,500 J/kg and effective bulk shear values often surpassing 40 knots.||The event unfolded in several phases. Starting late Monday, April 27, supercells across southern Missouri and northern Arkansas consolidated into a Mesoscale Convective System (MCS). This MCS tracked southward through Tuesday morning, bringing damaging winds, large hail, and two weak tornadoes. On Tuesday, a secondary shortwave trough triggered two additional rounds of severe weather. The first occurred late Tuesday afternoon into the early evening, featuring organized convection with bowing line segments that produced damaging winds, large hail, and a weak tornado in northeast Arkansas. The second round developed immediately after the first round had moved into Middle Tennessee and north Alabama, bringing further damaging winds from Tuesday evening through early Wednesday morning, along with locally heavy rainfall that caused flash flooding. By early Wednesday morning, April 29, the cold front exited the region, ending the threat and returning the area to cooler, drier conditions.

A brief EF0 tornado touched down near the intersection of CR 339 and CR 321 northwest of Pollard. When the tornado touched down, a large tree was uprooted, damaging an awning on a residential porch. The tornado quickly began to weaken after its initial touchdown, but not before ripping some metal roofing off a barn and blowing a few shingles off the roof of Trailer's Chapel General Baptist Church along CR 321. The tornado also caused minor tree damage along CR 328, lifting after crossing Highway 139. This survey was assisted by law enforcement camera footage.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:32 UTC and running to 03:00 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, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 Memphis radar (KNQA), 128 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:18 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 2026 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

15 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.