EF0 tornado, Willow Spgs Mem Arpt, Missouri, April 30, 2019

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 30, 2019

Touchdown

10:17 PM CDT (03:17 UTC)

Lifted

10:20 PM CDT (03:20 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.2 miles (3.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$12,000

County

Howell County

Touchdown point

37.027, -91.990

Lift-off point

37.035, -91.952

Record number

1904302117-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SGF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• Several trees uprooted. 2 homes lost some shingles and a barn was damaged.
• Numerous trees uprooted and a few snapped.
• Several large trees uprooted. Trees grazed house and two barns, resulting in damage. South of track center.
• Trees uprooted. Tree fell on shed.

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 a brief EF-0 tornado occurred north of Willow Springs. A barn was damaged and shingles were removed from the roofs of two homes. Numerous trees were snapped or uprooted along the tornadoes path. Fallen trees damaged a shed and a small barn. The maximum wind speeds were estimated at 100 mph.

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 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 00:59 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), 129 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:15 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.