EF0 tornado, Fortescue to Napier, Missouri, May 2, 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

May 2, 2018

Touchdown

7:18 PM CDT (00:18 UTC)

Lifted

7:22 PM CDT (00:22 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

4.0 miles (6.5 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Holt County

Touchdown point

40.075, -95.345

Lift-off point

40.074, -95.269

Record number

1805021818-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS EAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 74 mph.

• Several camper trailers overturned, docks ripped up, and boats overturned at Big Lake.
• Emergency Manager reported that they had major damage to a 60' x 90' pole barn 3 miles south of Bigelow.

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

On the evening of May 2, 2018 strong thunderstorms moved out of Kansas and into western Missouri. These storms formed squall line tornadoes, that did damage across portions of the Kansas City Metro Area. The bulk of the damage occurred in Jackson County, Missouri, where several trees were destroyed in the Raytown area near and along Raytown Road. Two tornadoes occurred that night in Raytown causing a narrow path of tree damage, which also caused some structure damage. Several other areas had some tornado and wind damage, although not quite as extensive. Several areas had trees blown down with some damage done to objects they fell onto.

A tornado formed just west of Big Lake and did damage to docks and boats, and knocked over some camper trailers at the lake. Four miles away from the lake, an Emergency Manager reported that he had a 60' by 90' pole barn destroyed.

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

15 minutes of warning. NWS EAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:03 UTC, 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:19 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:27 UTC and running to 03:28 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:16 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 Topeka radar (KTWX), 144 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:20 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

29 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.