EF1 tornado, Maud to Oakdale, Missouri, March 6, 2017

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 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

EF1

Date

March 6, 2017

Touchdown

9:40 PM CST (03:40 UTC)

Lifted

9:56 PM CST (03:56 UTC)

On the ground

16 minutes

Path length

18.5 miles (29.7 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

County

Shelby County

Touchdown point

39.633, -92.280

Lift-off point

39.750, -91.967

Record number

1703062140-02

29 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• trees also snapped halfway
• storage building destroyed baseball backstop destroyed windows on 4 busses blown in roof shingles blown off front of building

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

As a cold front moved across the region, a squall line developed and moved rapidly east across the forecast area. There were numerous reports of damaging winds, large hail and 8 tornadoes.

Tornado touched down on County Road 503, just south of the intersection with Highway Y. A barn was destroyed in this location with the damage rated EF1. The tornado tracked to the northeast causing scattered tree and building damage. As the tornado crossed County Road 426, just west of the intersection with Highway A, it destroyed a farm outbuilding. The tornado then crossed U.S. Highway 36 and hit the South Shelby High School. The school suffered minor roof damage, a couple of storage buildings were destroyed, and the baseball field backstop was destroyed. The press box was blown off the football field bleachers and destroyed. One home just northeast of the high school had a portion of its roof blown off. Intermittent tree and farm outbuilding damage continued until about 5.2 miles northeast of Shelbina. One injury occurred. A man was cut on the forehead by flying debris and required stitches. Overall, the tornado was rated EF1 with a path length of 18.47 miles and max path width of 150 yards.

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 02:54 UTC and running to 05:25 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:54 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.

Kirksville (IRK), 58 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The St Louis radar (KLSX), 166 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:39 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 2017 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

53 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.