Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2016

EF0 tornado, Midway to Unionville, Missouri, May 31, 2016

From Midway to Unionville, this EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Putnam County on May 31, 2016, touching down at 7:04 PM CDT and reaching 20 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.

  1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

    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 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
May 31, 2016
Touchdown
7:04 PM CDT (00:04 UTC)
Lifted
7:05 PM CDT (00:05 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Putnam County
Touchdown point
40.472, -93.040
Lift-off point
40.475, -93.040
Record number
1605311804-01

The damage survey

1 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 70 mph.

  • Video of a brief but very tall landspout was sent to the NWS via social media. The landspout caused no damage and only lasted a minute.

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 line of weak storms produced a landspout near Unionville, Missouri. It was caught on several videos and sent to the office via social media.

Video of a brief but very tall landspout was sent to the NWS via social media. The landspout caused no damage and only lasted a minute.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
01:13 UTC04:45 UTCFlood AdvisoryEAX

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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.

Davenport, (KDVN), 00:00Z

0.1 hours before the tornado, 248 km from the path. June 1, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Davenport, at 00:00Z on 2016-06-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 202 joules per kilogram, CIN -39, lifted condensation level 1286 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Davenport, at 00:00Z on 2016-06-01The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 101 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
202 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-39 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1588 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1286 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
101 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
145 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
1.6
0-3 km lapse rate
6.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Davenport, (KDVN), 12:00Z

11.9 hours after it, 248 km from the path. June 1, 2016.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Davenport, at 12:00Z on 2016-06-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 117 joules per kilogram, CIN -119, lifted condensation level 766 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Davenport, at 12:00Z on 2016-06-01The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 33 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 43 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
117 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-119 J/kg
Surface CAPE
84 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
766 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
43 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
33 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
43 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Des Moines radar (KDMX), 151 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:02 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
00:03 UTCTORNADOUnionvillePutnam, MOTORNADO OCCURRED IN AN OPEN FIELD. NO DAMAGE REPORTED.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 31, 2016

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 3110:04 AM CDTEF0Clinton, IA0.010
May 315:28 PM CDTUnratedGrady, OK0.530
May 315:28 PM CDTUnratedGrady, OK0.730
May 315:28 PM CDTUnratedGrady, OK0.730
May 315:33 PM CDTEF0Live Oak, TX2.725
May 316:30 PM CDTEF1Kleberg, TX0.9200$2.5 million
May 316:41 PM CDTEF1Kleberg, TX2.3400$1.0 million
May 316:53 PM CDTEF0Kleberg, TX0.430

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.