Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2015
EF0 tornado, Glenaire to Liberty, Missouri, July 6, 2015
From Glenaire to Liberty, this EF0 tornado ran 1.2 miles across Clay County on July 6, 2015, touching down at 5:04 PM CDT and reaching 40 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.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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
- EF0
- Date
- July 6, 2015
- Touchdown
- 5:04 PM CDT (22:04 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:07 PM CDT (22:07 UTC)
- On the ground
- 3 minutes
- Path length
- 1.2 miles (2.0 km)
- Path width
- 40 yards (37 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Clay County
- Touchdown point
- 39.236, -94.436
- Lift-off point
- 39.234, -94.413
- Record number
- 1507061604-01
The damage survey
2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS EAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 74 mph.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A slow moving cold front advanced into an extremely unstable air mass over eastern Kansas and northwestern and west central Missouri. Thunderstorms developed along the front producing extremely heavy rain, with some areas seeing up to 6, flash flooding, damaging winds and a few tornadoes.
The tornado caused damage to numerous trees along its path.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
9 minutes of warning. NWS EAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:55 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:15 UTC.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:28 UTC and running to 23:50 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:28 UTC | 23:50 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | EAX |
| 21:18 UTC | 22:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | EAX |
| 21:29 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | EAX |
| 21:51 UTC | 22:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | EAX |
| 21:55 UTC | 22:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | EAX |
| 21:58 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | EAX |
| 22:09 UTC | 22:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | EAX |
| 22:27 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | EAX |
| 00:00 UTC | 08:50 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | EAX |
| 00:17 UTC | 04:45 UTC | Flood Warning | EAX |
| 01:17 UTC | 07:15 UTC | Flood Warning | EAX |
| 02:00 UTC | 00:07 UTC | Flood Warning | EAX |
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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:48 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.
Topeka, KS (KFOE), 12:00Z
10.1 hours before the tornado, 108 km from the path. July 6, 2015.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 625 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -194 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1465 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1151 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 6 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 94 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 131 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.4 K/km
The radar
The Pleasant Hill radar (KEAX), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:04 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Oaks | Clay, MO | PHOTOS OF TREE DAMAGE AT NORTH OAK TRFWY AND ENGLEWOOD RD. |
| 22:04 UTC | TORNADO | 2 N Glenaire | Clay, MO | DEBRIS REPORTED WITH THE STORM. |
| 22:06 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 3 Nne Oakview | Clay, MO | 3 MILES NORTH OF GLADSTONE |
| 22:09 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Sw Liberty | Clay, MO | |
| 22:10 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Nnw Glenaire | Clay, MO | DEBRIS REPORTED AT INTERSECTION |
| 22:16 UTC | TORNADO | 3 N Courtney | Clay, MO | |
| 22:26 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 4 N Oakview | Clay, MO | TREE DAMAGE REPORTED AT 94TH AND OAK. |
| 22:32 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 1 E Plattsburg | Clinton, MO | AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR REPORTS HWY 116 IS CLOSED BY FIRE DEPT. APPROXIMATELY 1/8 MILE WEST OF ROUTE Y WITH 6 TO 8 INCHES OF WATER FLOWING OVER ROAD. |
| 22:37 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Nnw Glenaire | Clay, MO | REPORTS OF DAMAGE AND WINDOWS BLOWN OUT AT WAL-MART AND ADJACENT GAS STATION. |
| 22:39 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 2 Nw Smithville | Platte, MO | 2990 KK HIGHWAY AND 2285 KK HIGHWAY IMPASSABLE. |
| 22:54 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 6 | Tracy | Platte, MO | |
| 23:49 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Iatan | Platte, MO | TREES DOWN ON HWY 45 NEAR IATAN. |
| 23:49 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 6 Nw Platte City | Platte, MO | MAJOR FLOODING THROUGHOUT NORTHERN PLATTE COUNTY. REPORTED WASHOUT ON V HWY JUST NORTH OF V/P/H HWY INTERSECTION. |
| 23:49 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Weston | Platte, MO | BRIDGE OUT AT HUMES RD. AND GOODLET CIRCLE. |
| 00:00 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Se Edgerton | Platte, MO | PHOTO OBTAINED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA SHOWED GROVE CREEK FLOWING OVER CLARK AVENUE IN EDGERTON. DELAYED REPORT. WATER HAS SINCE SUBSIDED AS OF 9 PM. |
| 00:14 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Kansas City | Jackson, MO | SOUTHBOUND I-435 SHUTDOWN AT 23RD STREET DUE TO FLASH FLOODING. CARS STALLED IN FLOOD WATERS. |
| 00:58 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Platte City | Platte, MO | NUMEROUS ROADS CLOSED THROUGHOUT PLATTE COUNTY. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 6, 2015
5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.