Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2010

EF0 tornado, Gibbons, Missouri, May 16, 2010

This EF0 tornado ran 0.8 miles across Dunklin County on May 16, 2010, touching down at 6:13 PM CDT and reaching 25 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
May 16, 2010
Touchdown
6:13 PM CDT (23:13 UTC)
Lifted
6:14 PM CDT (23:14 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.8 miles (1.3 km)
Path width
25 yards (23 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Dunklin County
Touchdown point
36.122, -89.993
Lift-off point
36.125, -89.979
Record number
1005161713-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A stationary front was located across West Tennessee and Arkansas during the afternoon and evening hours of May 16, 2010 while an upper level disturbance moved into the Mid Mississippi Valley. These features combined with daytime heating to produce showers and thunderstorms across the Mid South. Some of the storms were severe producing damaging winds.

A landspout touched down near Rives and caused severe damage to farm equipment on County Road 735.

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

The warnings

18 minutes of warning. NWS MEG issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:55 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:55 UTC23:45 UTCTornado WarningMEG

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 21:48 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.

Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 12:00Z

11.2 hours before the tornado, 144 km from the path. May 16, 2010.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Little Rock, AR at 12:00Z on 2010-05-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 341 joules per kilogram, CIN -45, lifted condensation level 618 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°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, Little Rock, AR at 12:00Z on 2010-05-16The 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 18 knots.193958Sfc1 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
341 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-45 J/kg
Surface CAPE
96 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
618 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
23 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
25 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Little Rock, AR (KLZK), 00:00Z

0.8 hours after it, 144 km from the path. May 17, 2010.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Little Rock, AR at 00:00Z on 2010-05-17Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 29 joules per kilogram, CIN -270, lifted condensation level 952 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°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, Little Rock, AR at 00:00Z on 2010-05-17The 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 -58 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 44 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
29 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-270 J/kg
Surface CAPE
42 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
952 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
44 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-58 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-44 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Memphis radar (KNQA), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:13 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
22:35 UTCTORNADO6 W SteelePemiscot, MOCONFIRMED TOUCHDOWN OF A LANDSPOUT.
22:45 UTCTORNADOSteelePemiscot, MOLANDSPOUTS WERE REPORTED IN STEELE AND THROUGHOUT PEMISCOT COUNTY.
23:10 UTCTORNADOSteelePemiscot, MOLANDSPOUTS WERE REPORTED IN STEELE AND THROUGHOUT PEMISCOT COUNTY.
23:13 UTCTSTM WND DMG3 Ne HornersvilleDunklin, MOSEVERE DAMAGE TO FARM EQUIPMENT ON COUNTY ROAD 735 JUST WEST OF HIGHWAY CC NEAR RIVES AREA.
23:35 UTCTSTM WND DMG6 Sse KennettDunklin, MOA TOOL SHED WAS DESTROYED ON COUNTY ROAD 721 IN DUNKLIN COUNTY.

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 May 16, 2010

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 1611:30 AM CDTEF0Sebastian, AR0.150
May 163:14 PM MDTEF0Dundy, NE0.310
May 169:33 PM CDTEF0Pratt, KS0.350
May 1610:00 PM CDTEF0Kingman, KS0.8100

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.