EF1 tornado, Merritt to Brushyknob, 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

6:44 PM CDT (23:44 UTC)

Lifted

7:04 PM CDT (00:04 UTC)

On the ground

20 minutes

Path length

8.6 miles (13.8 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$75,000

County

Douglas County

Touchdown point

36.819, -92.685

Lift-off point

36.919, -92.593

Record number

1904301744-01

3 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 100 mph.

• Path is wider here...roughly 100 yards. numerous trees destroyed. Outbuilding was also hit with tin scattered.
• Light tree damage: This is the beginning point.

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.

This is the continuation of the tornado that touched down and tracked from near Guffy Creek in extreme eastern Christian County, and tracked into western Douglas County. A National Weather Service storm survey revealed that an EF-0 touched down near Guffy Creek in extreme eastern Christian County, and tracked into western Douglas County. This tornado was observed by a local resident along County Road 447 and presented a TDS on radar. Numerous trees were damaged or uprooted as the tornado tracked east and lifted just west of County Road 461A southwest of Merritt.

A National Weather Service storm survey confirmed an EF-1 tornado that tracked from four miles southwest of Squires, Missouri to five miles northeast of Squires. The tornado was on the ground for approximately 20 minutes along its nearly nine mile track with maximum wind speeds estimated at 107 mph. This tornado was observed by a local resident, and also presented multiple TDSs on radar. The tornado damaged thousands of trees, a church on Highway 14 and VV and a couple of outbuildings. The tornado tracked northeast from touch down to approximately one mile northeast of Squires, east of Highway 5, before turning and tracking north northeast finally lifting about a half mile north of Highway 14.

A National Weather Service storm survey confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down about five miles southeast of Ava, Missouri and tracked northeast across mainly forested areas north of Hunter Creek. The tornado was on the ground for approximately four minutes along its three mile total track with maximum wind speeds estimated at 100 mph. This tornado was spawned from a cyclical supercell thunderstorm which produced an earlier tornado near Squires, Missouri and presented a TDS on radar. Thousands of trees were snapped or uprooted along and north of Hunter Creek with lighter tree damage noted before the tornado lifted between County Road 213 and Highway 76.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:25 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:54 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:21 UTC and running to 05:57 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. 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), 79 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:45 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.