EF2 tornado, Jewett to Sedgewickville, 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

2:55 AM CST (08:55 UTC)

Lifted

3:30 AM CST (09:30 UTC)

On the ground

35 minutes

Path length

31.9 miles (51.3 km)

Path width

800 yards (732 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$100,000

Counties

Madison and Bollinger counties

Touchdown point

37.398, -90.533

Lift-off point

37.509, -89.886

Record number

1202290255-01

11 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 170 mph.

• .Significant roof damage to large, well constructed barn. Some evidence of convergent flow in tree damage nearby. Utililty pole bent over back to the south.
• Damage width about 100 yards.
• Cottner Mountain Industries building. About half of roof lifted off. Damage width about 200 yards.
• Swath of hardwoods uprooted. Damage width about 100 yards.

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

A strong cold front moved through the region, triggering showers and thunderstorms. There were several reports of damaging winds, large hail and one tornado.

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.

A tornado touched down on Madison County Road 437 (about half a mile north of intersection with Co. Road 424) at 255 am. At this location part of the roof of an abandoned house was blown off and several windows were blown out. Also, there was lots of tree damage in the area. The damage was rated EF1 in this location. The tornado continued to the east northeast. On Madison County Road 431, about a mile north of the intersection with Highway C, a home was completely blown apart and swept off the foundation. The debris was thrown in different directions. It was not bolted down into the concrete foundation, only nailed, so the EF rating given for this was EF2. All the hardwood trees next to the home were uprooted. The width of the damage path in this location was 200 yards. Further to the east additional tree damage was found on Madison County Road 411 near the intersection with Highway EE. As it travelled to the east northeast, the tornado approached U.S. Highway 67 near Zion. On the west side of U.S. Highway 67, about a third of a mile north of the intersection with Highway JJ, an abandoned single wide mobile home was rolled onto its roof. A bit further north of the mobile home, there was about a 100 yard wide swath of hardwoods that were uprooted on the west side of U.S. Highway 67. All of the damage in this area was rated EF1. Further to the east, about 1.6 miles west northwest of Marquand on Highway A, there was significant roof damage to a large well-constructed barn. There was some evidence of convergent flow in the tree damage nearby. A utility pole was bent over back to the south. Just to the east of the tree damage, about half the roof was lifted off of a business and numerous large oaks were uprooted in the area. Damage width was about 200 yards in this location with a rating of EF1. On Highway F, about two tenths of a mile north of the intersection with Highway A, a large swath of trees was uprooted, with additional sporadic tree damage along the rest of the path before crossing into Bollinger County (WFO Paducah���s forecast area) about a mile and a half northeast of Marquand on the south side of Highway A at 320 am. The path length in Madison County was 21.54 miles with a max width of 200 yards and a max rating of EF2. Overall, the tornado was on the ground for 31.88 miles with a max width of 800 yards and a max rating of EF2.

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.

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 tornado watch, issued at 07:15 UTC and running to 09:56 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.

Farmington (FAM), 39 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 134 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:56 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.