EF2 tornado, Buckner to Wood Hgts, Missouri, May 16, 2015

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

May 16, 2015

Touchdown

11:15 PM CDT (04:15 UTC)

Lifted

11:32 PM CDT (04:32 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

10.0 miles (16.1 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Jackson and Ray counties

Touchdown point

39.140, -94.220

Lift-off point

39.280, -94.170

Record number

1505162215-01

13 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 127 mph.

• possible start of tornado. minor roof damage. also small garden shed destroyed.
• lots of tree damage. some trees snapped at trunks.
• this is on east side of tornado damage path.
• power poles snapped about 1/4 mile south

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

A quasi-linear convective system moved through east central Kansas and west central Missouri producing multiple QLCS tornadoes and significant damage associated with numerous mesovortices. Interestingly, there was a supercell ahead of the line that also produced a tornado. Also, this line of storms produced extreme rain rates and widespread flash flooding was reported throughout the Kansas City area.

Ahead of the advancing QLCS a supercell formed and produced a tornado in northern Jackson County. It formed just southwest of Sibley, Missouri and barely missed the main part of the city just to the west. Although it remained mostly in rural parts of Jackson County it did impact some outbuildings and did plenty of tree damage to areas just west of Sibley. The tornado then moved across the Missouri River, into Ray County where it dissipated northwest of Orrick.

This is a continuation of the tornado that formed in northern Jackson County and moved in Ray County. Ahead of the advancing QLCS a supercell formed in Jackson County a supercell formed and produced a tornado just southwest of Sibley. This tornado crossed the Missouri River into Ray County and produced EF-2 damage, mainly to rural areas of the county. It did impact a mobile home and ripped its support straps out of the ground and wrapped it around a nearby tree. No one was occupying the residence at the time, so no injuries were reported. The tornado dissipated in rural Ray County, just northwest of Orrick.

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.

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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:22 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.

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 2015 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

47 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.