Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2018
EF1 tornado, Opal to Mt Vernon, Missouri, January 21, 2018
From Opal to Mt Vernon, this EF1 tornado ran 1.3 miles across Lawrence County on January 21, 2018, touching down at 8:04 PM CST and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 of property damage.
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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- January 21, 2018
- Touchdown
- 8:04 PM CST (02:04 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:05 PM CST (02:05 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 1.3 miles (2.0 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $100,000
- County
- Lawrence County
- Touchdown point
- 37.047, -93.829
- Lift-off point
- 37.066, -93.821
- Record number
- 1801212004-01
The damage survey
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 EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.
- Irrigation system damaged and flipped over.
- Four outbuildings, two ski boats, numerous trees destoyed. One home with minor roof damage.
- End point to Hoberg tornado. Trees damaged.
- One barn was destoyed along with a collapsed car port that fell on a pick up truck.
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
Isolated severe thunderstorms produced a few reports of wind damage and a brief EF-1 tornado.
A NWS storm survey found that a brief EF-1 tornado touched down in rural Lawrence County south of Mount Vernon. A couple of farm buildings were blown down on Farm Road 2155. One barn was destroyed. At least one home had minor roof damage. Several trees were uprooted and blown down along the path. A large tree smashed two cars. Estimated maximum wind speed was up to 95 mph.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
1 minute of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:03 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:30 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02:03 UTC | 02:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | SGF |
| 02:37 UTC | 03:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | SGF |
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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:40 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.
Springfield, MO (KSGF), 00:00Z
2.1 hours before the tornado, 18 km from the path. January 22, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 87 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -13 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 87 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 971 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 55 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 232 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 257 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.3 K/km
Springfield, MO (KSGF), 12:00Z
9.9 hours after it, 18 km from the path. January 22, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -94916 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1857 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 91 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 38 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -109 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -81 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.9 K/km
The surface observations
Monett (HFJ), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:10 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 150° 11 kt | 20 | 1005.8 | -VCTSRA |
| 00:30 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 160° 5 kt | 1005.8 | -VCTSRA | |
| 00:50 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 200° 18 kt | 21 | 1006.1 | -RA |
| 01:10 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 190° 6 kt | 1005.8 | -RA | |
| 01:30 UTC | 57.2 | 57.2 | 280° 9 kt | 1005.1 | RA | |
| 01:50 UTC | 59 | 59 | 160° 9 kt | 20 | 1005.1 | VCTSRA |
| 02:10 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 170° 14 kt | 17 | 1005.1 | -RA |
| 02:30 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 160° 14 kt | 22 | 1005.1 | TSRA |
| 02:50 UTC | 57.2 | 55.4 | 170° 12 kt | 19 | 1004.7 | -RA |
| 03:10 UTC | 53.6 | 51.8 | 130° 10 kt | 1003.7 | -RA | |
| 03:30 UTC | 53.6 | 51.8 | 150° 10 kt | 1003.7 | -RA | |
| 03:50 UTC | 53.6 | 53.6 | 170° 10 kt | 1003.4 | -VCTSRA |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Springfield radar (KSGF), 43 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:04 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02:04 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Se Hoberg | Lawrence, MO | COUPLE OF BUILDINGS DOWN ON FARM ROAD 2155 2 AND A HALF MILES SOUTH OF MT VERNON. ALSO REPORTS OF TREES DOWN. THIS IS RIGHT NEAR THE LOCATION OF A WELL DEFINED DROP IN CORRELATION COEFFICIENT. TORNADO LIKELY OCCURRED AT |
| 02:04 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Se Hoberg | Lawrence, MO | A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE STORM SURVEY REVEALED THAT AN EF-1 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN APPROXIMATELY TWO MILES SOUTHEAST OF HOBERG. THE TORNADO PATH WAS ONE MILE IN LENGTH, AND ROUGHLY 75 YARDS IN WIDTH. FOUR OUTBUILDINGS, A |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2018 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of January 21, 2018
7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 21 | 6:29 PM CST | EF0 | Navarro, TX | 1.1 | 60 | $90,000 | ||
| January 21 | 6:56 PM CST | EF1 | Sebastian, AR | 5.2 | 350 | $50,000 | ||
| January 21 | 7:40 PM CST | EF1 | Franklin, AR | 4.3 | 400 | $10,000 | ||
| January 21 | 8:19 PM CST | EF0 | Hopkins, TX | 0.3 | 50 | $5,000 | ||
| January 21 | 9:26 PM CST | EF2 | Bowie, TX | 7.1 | 560 | $2.5 million | ||
| January 21 | 9:43 PM CST | EF0 | Bowie, TX | 0.5 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| January 21 | 9:48 PM CST | EF1 | Little River, AR | 6.3 | 295 | $40,000 |
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.