EF1 tornado, Macomb to Graff, Missouri, April 13, 2018

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

April 13, 2018

Touchdown

7:35 PM CDT (00:35 UTC)

Lifted

7:40 PM CDT (00:40 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

5.0 miles (8.0 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Wright County

Touchdown point

37.254, -92.327

Lift-off point

37.301, -92.253

Record number

1804131835-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SGF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 130 mph.

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

A strong cold front and associated spring storm system produce severe thunderstorms with very large hail and several tornadoes across the Missouri Ozarks.

An EF-2 tornado with a width of 100 yards and a track on the ground for 9 miles tore through portions of Wright County. The tornado had a maximum estimated wind speed of 130 mph. The track started near Macomb and lifted about 5 miles north of Norwood. One home was completely destroyed in additional to numerous trees and outbuildings blown down or damaged.

An EF-1 tornado with a maximum width of 75 yards and estimated maximum wind speed up to 100 mph tracked approximately 5 miles across eastern rural Wright County. Numerous trees and outbuildings were damaged.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:09 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:29 UTC and running to 02:36 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:04 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 Springfield radar (KSGF), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:36 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 2018 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

22 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.