EF1 tornado, Round Grove, Missouri, April 30, 2019

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 30, 2019

Touchdown

7:39 PM CDT (00:39 UTC)

Lifted

7:41 PM CDT (00:41 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

Counties

Dade and Lawrence counties

Touchdown point

37.286, -93.911

Lift-off point

37.288, -93.901

Record number

1904301839-01

7 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.

• Power lines and trees down as well
• Numerous trees uprooted....one home damaged by fallen tree.

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

Very moist and unstable conditions developed over the Missouri Ozarks ahead of an intense low pressure system over the southern Plains. Widespread severe storms developed over Oklahoma and eastern Kansas during the early morning hours and tracked eastward into the Springfield county warning area during the afternoon and evening. Very heavy rainfall, hail to tennis ball size, damaging winds in excess of 70 mph and 27 tornadoes occurred with this system as storms tracked repeatedly over the region. Four injuries were reported as a result of severe storms. One injury was near Mountain Grove and three were in southeastern Greene County were an EF-2 Tornado tracked. The resulting rainfall led to widespread flash flooding, which continued into the morning of May 1st, on head water streams and low water crossings. One live was lost when a camper along Hunter Creek in Douglas County drowned as the campground flooded.

A National Weather Service storm survey confirmed an EF-1 tornado that briefly touched down six miles northwest of Miller, Missouri and tracked right along the Dade and Lawrence County line. The tornado was on the ground for approximately two minutes along its 0.6 mile total track with maximum wind speeds estimated at 95 mph. This is the second tornado to have touched down in the Miller area during this event and was produced by a cluster of storms (QLCS) that had followed several hours after a supercell earlier produced a tornado southwest to northeast of Miller. Tree fall patterns with this tornado were determined to be tornadic along a short intermittent path from west of Highway UU to along Highway NN (on the Dade/Lawrence Co line) before the last sign of damage north of the intersection of FR 1085 and Highway NN where trees were uprooted. This tornado continued briefly into Dade County.

This is the continuation of the tornado that touched down six miles northwest of Miller in Lawrence County, Missouri and lifted just north into Dade County, Missouri. In total, the tornado was on the ground for approximately two minutes along its 0.6 mile total track with maximum wind speeds estimated at 95 mph. This tornado crossed the county line along Highway NN (on the Dade/Lawrence Co line) ) before the last sign of damage north of the intersection of FR 1085 and Highway NN where trees were uprooted with one of the fallen trees heavily damaging a home.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:03 UTC and running to 03:50 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:46 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), 45 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:38 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 2019 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

55 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.