EF2 tornado, Willisville to Irma, Arkansas, March 7, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF2, preliminary

Date

March 7, 2026

Touchdown

5:37 AM CST (11:37 UTC)

Lifted

5:45 AM CST (11:45 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

2.7 miles (4.4 km)

Path width

345 yards (315 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

County

Nevada County

Touchdown point

33.518, -93.337

Lift-off point

33.553, -93.316

Highest wind the damage implies

125 mph

Surveyed by

NWS SHV

The office's name for it

Willisville, AR

Survey last edited

March 27, 2026

Record number

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

During the morning hours on Saturday, March 7, 2026 a severe thunderstorm produced a tornado with peak winds of 125 mph just west of Willisville, Arkansas. This same storm had a history of producing tornadoes across eastern Texas. The first sign of damage from the tornado was seen just south of the intersection of Highway 32 and County Road 9 near a large open field. The tornado brought down multiple large trees before heading northwest through the large open field. On the far northeast corner of the field is where tree damage picked up again, before tracking across Highway 32 just to the west of County Road 17. The more significant damage was found near County Road 122, County Road 17, and County Road 1702 where numerous structures sustained damage. A single wide residence was lifted off the rooted foundation and tossed around 100 feet before landing and being completely destroyed. There was one occupant in the residence who thankfully walked away from the incident with minor injuries. It was at this location that the tornado was rated an EF-2 with max winds of 125 mph. The tornado then went through another grove of trees before crossing County Road 17 just north of County Road 1702 where it destroyed a small garage/storage unit. Damage from this unit was scattered all throughout an open field all the way to County Road 124. It also brought down a number of very large trees as it crossed the road. As the tornado crossed over County Road 124, it appears to have started to lift, as damage was more sporadic in an wide open field. The adjacent tree line at the end of the field along the path of the tornado had a few trees down, but there was no evidence that the tornado remained on the ground from this point. A special thanks goes out to to the Nevada County Office of Emergency Management for helping us locate the damage and to Josh Klober who helped us gain additional points from locations unreachable.

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

21 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Drone footage showed damage path

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

Strong to severe thunderstorms developed in advance of a cold front on the morning of March 7th from eastern Oklahoma into western Arkansas. Wind profiles were quite favorable for organized thunderstorms, with moderate deep-layer shear and effective storm-relative helicity near/above 250 m2/s2. Further analysis also indicated a modest increase in MLCAPE overnight into the early morning hours in the pre-frontal warm air regime, as rich low-level moisture was transported into the region from the southwest. This led to some intensification of convection prior to the arrival of the approaching cold front, with one thunderstorm producing a tornado near the Willisville community in southern Nevada County.

During the early morning hours on March 7th, a severe thunderstorm produced an EF2 tornado with estimated maximum winds of 125 mph just west of Willisville in Southern Nevada County, Arkansas. This storm also had a history of producing an earlier tornado in East Texas. The first sign of damage from the tornado was seen just south of the intersection of Highway 32 and County Road 9 near a large open field. The tornado brought down multiple large trees before heading northeast through the large open field. On the far northeast corner of the field is where tree damage picked up again, before tracking across Highway 32 just to the west of County Road 17. The more significant damage was found near County Road 122, County Road 17, and County Road 1702, where numerous structures sustained damage. A single wide mobile home was lifted off the rooted foundation and tossed around 100 feet before landing and being completely destroyed. There was one occupant in the residence who walked away from the incident with only minor injuries. It was at this location that the tornado was rated an EF2 with maximum winds of 125 mph. The tornado then went through another grove of trees before crossing County Road 17 just north of County Road 1702 where it destroyed a small garage/storage unit. Damage from this unit was scattered all throughout an open field all the way to County Road 124. It also brought down a number of very large trees as it crossed the road. As the tornado crossed over County Road 124, it appeared to have started to lift, as damage was more sporadic in a wide open field. The adjacent tree line at the end of the field along the path of the tornado had a few trees down, but there was no clear indication that the tornado remained on the ground beyond this point.

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

15 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 11:22 UTC, 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 12:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 09:24 UTC and running to 14:00 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. The outlook in force was issued at 06:02 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:37 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 2026 tornado in ArkansasEvery tornado in Arkansas since 1950Warnings in force in Arkansas nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.