Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2010

EF0 tornado, Pendleton to New Truxton, Missouri, April 23, 2010

From Pendleton to New Truxton, this EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Warren County on April 23, 2010, touching down at 6:40 PM CDT and reaching 10 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
April 23, 2010
Touchdown
6:40 PM CDT (23:40 UTC)
Lifted
6:41 PM CDT (23:41 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Warren County
Touchdown point
38.857, -91.207
Lift-off point
38.858, -91.206
Record number
1004231740-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Storms formed south of a warm front and moved north, interacting with the frontal boundary. Some of the storms produced brief tornado touch downs, while others produced very heavy rainfall.

A tornado briefly touched down in a field. No damage was reported.

A tornado briefly touched down in a field. No damage was reported.

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

The warnings

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:51 UTC00:30 UTCTornado WarningLSX
00:10 UTC05:00 UTCTornado WatchLSX
00:24 UTC00:43 UTCTornado WarningLSX

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. 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 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.

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z

11.7 hours before the tornado, 266 km from the path. April 23, 2010.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2010-04-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -68938, lifted condensation level 715 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 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, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2010-04-23The 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 -23 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 51 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-68938 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
715 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
51 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-23 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
109 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z

0.3 hours after it, 266 km from the path. April 24, 2010.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2010-04-24Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 4 joules per kilogram, CIN -170, lifted condensation level 462 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, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2010-04-24The 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 259 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 53 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
4 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-170 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
462 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
53 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
259 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
350 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.2
0-3 km lapse rate
4.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The St Louis radar (KLSX), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:39 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
23:40 UTCTORNADO4 Nw WarrentonWarren, MOBRIEF TORNADO TOUCHDOWN OBSERVED 4 MILES NORTHWEST OF WARRENTON
00:13 UTCWALL CLOUD2 W JonesburgMontgomery, MOROTATION IN CLOUDS TO THE NORTH OF INTERSTATE 70
00:25 UTCTORNADO7 Nnw WarrentonWarren, MOLAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTED TORNADO BETWEEN WARRENTON AND TRUXTON...LOCATION ESTIMATED.
00:29 UTCTORNADO4 E Hawk PointLincoln, MOSMALL TORNADO ON THE GROUND WITH HEAVY ROTATION AND A LARGE WALL CLOUD...ONE MILE WEST OF THIS LOCATION.
00:30 UTCFUNNEL CLOUDHawk PointLincoln, MONUMEROUS REPORTS OF FUNNEL CLOUDS RECEIVED FROM THE PUBLIC
00:48 UTCTORNADO3 Sw SilexLincoln, MOTORNADO SPOTTED BY CHASER NORTH OF TROY ON HIGHWAY 61. REPORT RELAYED BY WGEM
01:03 UTCWALL CLOUD2 N SilexLincoln, MOWALL CLOUD TO THE SOUTH...NEAR SILEX...MOVING SLOWLY NORTHEAST
01:03 UTCWALL CLOUD2 Se SilexLincoln, MOWALL CLOUD TO THE NORTHWEST OF THIS LOCATION
01:11 UTCWALL CLOUDSilexLincoln, MOSPOTTER WAS NEAR HIGHWAY 61 AND E....LOOKING WEST OVER SILEX.
01:14 UTCTORNADO5 Ne SilexLincoln, MOSPOTTER WAS ON US 61 ABOUT 5 MILES NORTHEAST OF SILEX...LOOKING AT ROPE TORNADO TO HIS WEST...ABOUT TWO MILES NORTH OF SILEX.
01:35 UTCWALL CLOUD2 Sse EoliaLincoln, MOSPOTTER WAS LOOKING NORTH

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2010 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 23, 2010

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 2311:17 AM MDTEF0Lincoln, CO0.150
April 233:48 PM CDTEF1Leflore, MS2.050$50,000
April 237:11 PM CDTEF0Warren, MO0.110
April 237:29 PM CDTEF0Lincoln, MO0.220
April 237:34 PM CDTEF0Cass, TX4.850
April 237:44 PM CDTEF0Cass, TX to AR17.6100$30,000
April 237:48 PM CDTEF0Lincoln, MO0.110
April 238:14 PM CDTEF0Lincoln, MO0.110

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.