EF2 tornado, Alta Vista to Jameson, Missouri, March 27, 2014

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

March 27, 2014

Touchdown

4:22 PM CDT (21:22 UTC)

Lifted

4:27 PM CDT (21:27 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Daviess County

Touchdown point

40.030, -94.000

Lift-off point

40.050, -93.950

Record number

1403271522-01

15 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS EAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 131 mph.

• wind damage. wind was from the southwest. point is 1/10 of a mile east of here and south of road
• two mobile homes one north one south of the road with roof and siding damage. barn damaged from wind and 5x5 debris impacts.
• hard wood trees down as well
• power pools and tree damage. small out building damaged. narrow width of about 1/10 mile with.

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

A strong upper-level storm system tracked through Upper Midwest during the day of March 27th, trailing a sharp cold front southward through Missouri and eastern Kansas. Severe thunderstorms with large hail and damaging winds developed in extreme east central Kansas and tracked across portions of the Kansas City metropolitan area. Tornadic thunderstorms developed northeast of Kansas causing damage to a number of homes in north central Missouri.

A weak tornado persisted for approximately 12 minutes as it traversed across rural portions of Daviess County. A mobile home was overturned about 4 miles northeast of Weatherby, Missouri and a couple modular homes suffered minor damage across rural portions of Daviess County.

A strong tornado impacted a farmstead and another residence, both north of Jameson, Missouri. The residence on the farmstead was a small residential home that had the roof completely removed and outer wall partially destroyed. At this residence a large metal outbuilding showed signs of sheet metal siding being removed from strong winds entering the structure. About a mile northeast of this structure a modular home was completely destroyed with the debris blown completely away. Several large barns also noted sheet metal siding being ripped off.

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 17:57 UTC and running to 21:52 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:03 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.

Chillicothe (CDJ), 41 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Pleasant Hill radar (KEAX), 139 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:23 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 2014 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.