Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2013
EF1 tornado, Olden, Missouri, May 30, 2013
This EF1 tornado ran 4.3 miles across Howell County on May 30, 2013, touching down at 12:20 AM CDT and reaching 400 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 of property damage.
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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- May 30, 2013
- Touchdown
- 12:20 AM CDT (05:20 UTC)
- Lifted
- 12:25 AM CDT (05:25 UTC)
- On the ground
- 5 minutes
- Path length
- 4.3 miles (6.9 km)
- Path width
- 400 yards (366 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $5,000
- County
- Howell County
- Touchdown point
- 36.859, -92.010
- Lift-off point
- 36.892, -91.945
- Record number
- 1305302320-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A slow moving trough across the central portions of the country helped develop several rounds of severe thunderstorms and flash flooding across the Missouri Ozarks.
A tornado uprooted numerous trees along its 4 mile path. Several bales of hay were picked up and thrown. An outbuilding was destroyed near a dairy farm. The width of the path was estimated about a quarter of a mile wide. Estimated maximum winds were up to 100 mph.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
2 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:18 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 UTC | 12:00 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | SGF |
| 18:25 UTC | 01:59 UTC | Tornado Watch | SGF |
| 03:20 UTC | 09:00 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | SGF |
| 05:18 UTC | 06:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | SGF |
| 05:48 UTC | 06:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | SGF |
| 05:51 UTC | 06:08 UTC | Tornado Warning | SGF |
| 06:12 UTC | 12:00 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | SGF |
| 08:53 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Flood Warning | SGF |
| 11:51 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Flood Warning | SGF |
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 01:00 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.
Springfield, MO (KSGF), 12:00Z
6.7 hours after it, 162 km from the path. May 31, 2013.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 805 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -160 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 171 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 614 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 59 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 368 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 350 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 5.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.7 K/km
The radar
The Springfield radar (KSGF), 132 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:20 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02:30 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Mansfield | Wright, MO | APARTMENT BUILDINGS WITH WATER ENTERING THE STRUCTURES. |
| 05:20 UTC | TORNADO 1 | 4 W Pomona | Howell, MO | A TORNADO UPROOTED NUMEROUS TREES FROM FOUR MILES WEST TO TWO MILES NORTHWEST OF POMONA. |
| 05:29 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Pomona | Howell, MO | TREE DOWN |
| 05:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 Wsw Mountain View | Howell, MO | SEVERAL BUILDINGS DAMAGED NEAR HUTTON VALLEY. POSSIBLE TORNADO. |
| 06:56 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 2 W Moody | Howell, MO | LOW WATER CROSSINGS FLOODED AND IMPASSABLE |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2013 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 30, 2013
28 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 30 | 2:08 PM CDT | EF1 | Polk, AR | 0.8 | 200 | $35,000 | ||
| May 30 | 3:00 PM CDT | EF2 | Montgomery, AR | 3.4 | 400 | 2 | $250,000 | |
| May 30 | 3:03 PM CDT | EF1 | Pike, AR | 1.5 | 300 | $10,000 | ||
| May 30 | 3:08 PM CDT | EF0 | Payne, OK | 0.3 | 100 | |||
| May 30 | 3:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Payne, OK | 0.7 | 100 | |||
| May 30 | 3:16 PM CDT | EF2 | Pike, AR | 9.0 | 300 | 5 | $145,000 | |
| May 30 | 3:26 PM CDT | EF0 | Payne, OK | 1.6 | 200 | |||
| May 30 | 3:35 PM CDT | EF2 | Polk, OK to AR | 8.6 | 800 | 5 | $295,000 | |
| May 30 | 3:35 PM CDT | EF1 | Garland, AR to OK | 8.7 | 300 | $100,000 | ||
| May 30 | 3:37 PM CDT | EF0 | Payne, OK | 0.4 | 50 | |||
| May 30 | 3:49 PM CDT | EF1 | Garland, AR | 7.2 | 300 | $500,000 | ||
| May 30 | 4:01 PM CDT | EF0 | Creek, OK | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 30 | 4:10 PM CDT | EF1 | Muscatine, IA | 2.4 | 100 | $25,000 | ||
| May 30 | 4:32 PM CDT | EF1 | Polk, AR | 2.4 | 200 | $75,000 | ||
| May 30 | 4:44 PM CDT | EF1 | Rock Island, IL to IA | 4.0 | 150 | $140,000 | ||
| May 30 | 5:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Whiteside, IL | 0.6 | 25 | |||
| May 30 | 5:58 PM CDT | EF0 | Garvin, OK | 0.4 | 200 | |||
| May 30 | 6:10 PM CDT | EF1 | Montgomery, AR | 3.2 | 200 | $15,000 | ||
| May 30 | 6:49 PM CDT | EF0 | Mayes, OK | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 30 | 6:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Mayes, OK | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| May 30 | 7:08 PM CDT | EF0 | Mayes, OK | 0.6 | 100 | |||
| May 30 | 7:24 PM CDT | EF1 | Mayes, OK | 2.1 | 200 | |||
| May 30 | 7:46 PM CDT | EF1 | Saline, AR | 1.7 | 250 | $25,000 | ||
| May 30 | 8:40 PM CDT | EF2 | Tulsa, OK | 5.6 | 450 | $3.0 million | ||
| May 30 | 9:13 PM CDT | EF1 | Pulaski, AR | 0.2 | 150 | $150,000 | ||
| May 30 | 9:36 PM CDT | EF1 | Grant, AR | 0.4 | 200 | 1 | $25,000 | |
| May 30 | 12:25 AM CDT | EF1 | Monroe, AR | 0.4 | 100 | $25,000 | ||
| May 30 | 12:50 AM CDT | EF1 | Monroe, AR | 3.3 | 200 | 1 | $150,000 |
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.