EF1 tornado, Ozark Airpark Arpt to Christian Center, 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

8:35 PM CDT (01:35 UTC)

Lifted

9:00 PM CDT (02:00 UTC)

On the ground

25 minutes

Path length

23.3 miles (37.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$125,000

Counties

Stone and Christian counties

Touchdown point

36.806, -93.540

Lift-off point

36.866, -93.126

Record number

1904301935-01

21 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SGF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 132 mph.

• Roughly 35% of walls collapsed and entire roof destroyed. 3 injuries...all were seeking shelter in bedroom closet.
• Numerous homes with 20 to 70% roof damage. This point is near where the tornado entered the Waterford sub-division.
• Roof disintegration with most walls collapsed. Tornado width is roughly 200 yards wide here.
• Tornado continued to destroy hundreds of trees and damage several outbuildings at this 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.

A National Weather Service Storm survey confirmed an EF-2 tornado, produced by a slow moving supercell, tracked from two miles north of Ozark, Missouri to five miles northwest of Rogersville, Missouri. The tornado was on the ground for approximately 20 minutes along its 10.3 mile total track with maximum wind speeds estimated at 134 mph. Along the tornadoes track, which started in Christian County and continued into Greene County, 235 homes and multiple out buildings were damaged. Twelve homes were reported as total losses. As many as 45 vehicles were damaged and three horses were killed when a barn was hit. Hundreds of trees were snapped or uprooted and multiple power poles and lines were downed. Three injuries were reported with two people transported to a local hospital. The tornado touched down just south of North 9th Avenue and East State Highway NN in Christian County. As the tornado proceeded to the northeast it impacted 145 homes in Christian County before moving into Greene County. Of those homes, nine were reported as total losses. Two injuries occurred in one home as the tornado traveled through a subdivision. Many vehicles were damaged along with multiple outbuildings before the tornado passed into Greene County along East County Line Road just west of South Farm Road 203. The tornado track continued into Greene County where additional EF-2 damage occurred along the remaining eight miles it remained on the ground.

A National Weather Service survey confirmed an EF-1 tornado that tracked a total of 23 miles from one mile northeast of Galena to six miles southwest of Chadwick, Missouri. The tornado was on the ground for approximately 25 minutes along its 23 mile total track with maximum wind speeds estimated at 100 mph. The tornado tracked for eleven miles across central and east central Stone County before continuing into southwestern Christian County. As the tornado tracked across Stone County, it produced an intermittent damage path, which was detected as a long lived TDS on radar. Numerous trees were damaged near the touchdown point and the roof of a large machine shed was removed. As the tornado continued east it rolled a pickup truck approximately 40 yards into a house. Significant tree damage continued across east central Stone County before the tornado continued its track into southwestern Christian County.

This is the continuation of the tornado that touched down and tracked from one mile northeast of Galena in Stone County, Missouri to six miles southwest of Chadwick in Christian County, Missouri. A National Weather Service Survey confirmed an EF-1 tornado that tracked a total of 23 miles from one mile northeast of Galena to six miles southwest of Chadwick. The tornado was on the ground for approximately 25 minutes along its total track with maximum wind speeds estimated at 100 mph. After tracking across Stone County the tornado then moved into southwestern Christian County were tree damage continued across the tornadoes path. A total of six outbuilding were damaged or destroyed along the tornadoes track in Christian County. One home sustained minor damage from fallen trees. Thousands of trees were estimated to have been damaged or uprooted along the tornadoes path.

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. 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.

Branson West Muni (FWB), 16 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Springfield radar (KSGF), 45 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:36 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.