EF2 tornado, Grisham to Hines Lndg, Missouri, February 29, 2012

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

February 29, 2012

Touchdown

3:34 AM CST (09:34 UTC)

Lifted

3:44 AM CST (09:44 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

7.7 miles (12.3 km)

Path width

120 yards (110 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$170,000

Counties

Bollinger and Cape Girardeau counties

Touchdown point

37.469, -89.905

Lift-off point

37.481, -89.766

Record number

1202290334-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

• Tree damage over this area. Trees uprooted or snapped

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

A squall line with embedded sustained supercells crossed southeast Missouri. The embedded supercells raced east-northeast at 60 to 70 mph, while the line moved southeast at a slower rate. The storms strengthened as they encountered richer low-level moisture, with surface dew points around 60 degrees spreading rapidly north-northeastward up the Mississippi Valley. Intense low to mid-level wind fields maintained the intensity of tornadic storms despite weak instability due to lack of solar heating. A south-southwesterly low level jet from 60 to 70 knots veered to west-southwest around 75 knots at 500 mb.

Six to eight homes sustained roof damage along Highway 72. The roof damage consisted mainly of shingle damage. Ten larger barns received roof damage over a five-mile area. Numerous trees were uprooted and snapped. Numerous power poles were down. The average path width was 800 yards. Peak winds were estimated near 90 mph.

Several large trees were snapped or uprooted. The walls of a machine shed were blown out and a large barn was collapsed. The tornado path continued into Cape Girardeau County.

The tornado crossed into Cape Girardeau County from Bollinger County just north of where Missouri Highway 72 crosses the county line. Many large trees were snapped or uprooted with indications of a multi-vortex damage pattern. Three homes had most of their windows blown out with one having part of it's roof blown off. An attached garage was uplifted and tossed over 100 yards. The roofs on 2 mobile homes were partially ripped off. The average path width was 100 yards. The peak wind speed was 115 mph.

Thousands of trees were snapped or uprooted, and several houses were damaged. The houses that were damaged suffered primarily partial roof loss. The houses were located in Oak Ridge and Pocahontas. One man was injured when a roof collapsed on him. Numerous barns and grain bins were destroyed. Many power lines were blown down. The average path width was 250 yards. Peak winds were estimated near 115 mph. The tornado path continued across the Mississippi River into Union County, Illinois.

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

31 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 09:03 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 09:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:15 UTC and running to 12:15 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:51 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 Paducah radar (KPAH), 104 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:34 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 2012 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

31 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.