EF1 tornado, Dale to La Valle, Missouri, March 9, 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 9, 2017

Touchdown

7:28 PM CST (01:28 UTC)

Lifted

7:48 PM CST (01:48 UTC)

On the ground

20 minutes

Path length

11.2 miles (18.0 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$400,000

County

Stoddard County

Touchdown point

36.661, -90.090

Lift-off point

36.668, -89.888

Record number

1703091928-01

53 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• damage Strewn to S and NE.
• machine shed demolished and blown up to several hundred yards
• A trailer and a camper blown over (camper destroyed) with farm implements blown around and trees uprooted.
• farm implement - wagon - blown about 100 feet toward the north.

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

A cluster of severe thunderstorms over south central Missouri organized into a bowing line of storms as it tracked eastward during the evening. An embedded supercell within the line spawned several tornadoes along an east-west corridor from Ripley County eastward to New Madrid County. A couple of significant tornadoes and damaging wind events accompanied this line, along with large hail. The storms developed along and just ahead of a cold front as it pressed southward into the Lower Ohio Valley and extreme southeast Missouri.

Peak winds were estimated near 95 mph in this tornado that occurred northwest of Dudley. The most intense damage was on Highway 51, where a residence lost doors and windows, the roof was damaged, and large trees were blown down. A nearby large barn lost a wall and portion of the metal roof. Roofing debris consisting of shingles and tin was deposited at a residence near the end of the track, about a mile east of Highway 51. This residence lost a few shingles, outbuildings were damaged, and cedar trees were pushed over. Near the beginning of the damage track, a large tree landed on a well-built garage, and a gazebo was blown about 100 yards.

This tornado moved from west to east across southern Stoddard County, passing across the town of Bernie. Peak winds were estimated near 95 mph. Numerous farm machine sheds of varying sizes were leveled. Several homes in Bernie received minor to moderate damage, ranging from loss of shingles to blown out windows and wall sections. A small camper unit was overturned. Several grain bins were damaged on the west side of Bernie. Numerous trees were uprooted or snapped. Very strong straight-line winds up to 95 mph just south of the tornado track produced equally intense damage, including a couple leveled barns. This tornado was one of several that were spawned by the same eastward-moving supercell.

This weak tornado was produced by the same storm that caused other tornadoes both due west and east of this track on the evening of March 9. Several trees and tree limbs were blown down. Two grain bins were blown in on one side. This short track was along Highway Z in southeast Stoddard County. Peak winds were estimated near 80 mph.

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

29 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:59 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 23:02 UTC and running to 02:58 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 00:51 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.

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 117 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:28 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

16 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.