EF0 tornado, Demmittville to Charter Oak, Missouri, April 3, 2018

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

April 3, 2018

Touchdown

5:58 PM CDT (22:58 UTC)

Lifted

6:04 PM CDT (23:04 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.5 miles (7.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$35,000

County

Stoddard County

Touchdown point

36.730, -89.806

Lift-off point

36.764, -89.737

Record number

1804031658-01

11 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.

• small porch completely removed

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

An organized outbreak of severe thunderstorms occurred. Most of the severe weather reports were generated by two intense storm clusters. The first cluster crossed the Ozark foothills between Van Buren and Doniphan, then proceeded due east across Poplar Bluff and Dexter to the Mississippi River. This cluster occasionally acquired supercell characteristics. Large hail from 1 to 3 inches in diameter was common during most of its life cycle in southeast Missouri. A couple of tornadoes were spawned as well. A second less intense cluster moved east across southern Bollinger and Cape Girardeau Counties. This cluster produced hail up to the size of golf balls and an isolated wind gust up to near 60 mph. The severe storm outbreak occurred ahead of a cold front that accelerated east-southeast toward the mid Mississippi Valley. Cooling aloft ahead of a shortwave trough over the Plains, combined with diurnal heating and moist southerly winds, resulted in a corridor of deepening convection ahead of the front. Steep mid-level lapse rates and strong effective wind shear promoted some very large hail within discrete storm cells.

The tornado touched down along Highway 153 and moved northeast toward the community of Baker. Several windows were broken. There was partial loss of metal roof covering. The top was broken off the chimney of a home. Two barns lost parts of their metal roofs, and walls were blown off. A garage sustained loss of shingles. A large entry door was blown in. Large limbs were broken off several trees. Several wooden power poles were partially blown over. Peak winds were estimated near 85 mph. The tornado lifted about one mile southeast of Baker. The last minute or two of the tornado was captured on video.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:50 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:38 UTC and running to 00:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:33 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), 96 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:56 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

21 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.