EF2 tornado, March to Spring Grove, Missouri, May 8, 2009

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 8, 2009

Touchdown

8:41 AM CDT (13:41 UTC)

Lifted

8:45 AM CDT (13:45 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

4.3 miles (6.8 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$2.0 million

County

Dallas County

Touchdown point

37.516, -93.054

Lift-off point

37.568, -93.013

Record number

0905080741-01

An intense squall line impacted extreme southeast Kansas and the Missouri Ozarks with mainly damaging winds. However, 19 tornadoes along with large hail was also observed. Due to the straight line nature of the winds, damage was widespread and intense.

A National Weather Service storm survey revealed that an EF-2 tornado touched down two miles west of Charity and tracked northeast over an intermittent path. The tornado destroyed three frame homes and numerous outbuildings. One indirect fatality and another injury resulted from this tornado. A man and his wife were both injured when their house was destroyed. He later died from a heart attack while being transported to the hospital.

The deaths

0 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 09:58 UTC and running to 14:49 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:10 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.

Springfield (SGF), 46 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Springfield radar (KSGF), 47 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:39 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 2009 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

45 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.