EF0 tornado, Blanche to Buckhart, Missouri, April 28, 2021

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 28, 2021

Touchdown

11:13 AM CDT (16:13 UTC)

Lifted

11:19 AM CDT (16:19 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.0 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Douglas County

Touchdown point

36.842, -92.325

Lift-off point

36.864, -92.305

Record number

2104281013-01

2 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.

• Eyewitness account of rotation with debris. Three car garage, several outbuildings destroyed.

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

Heavy rain developed over southern Missouri on the night of the 27th and continued through the evening of the 28th as a slow moving cold front moved across the region and interacted with a moist and unstable airmass over the region. Several inches of rain fell in a short period of time during the early morning of the 28th and led to flash flooding in Reeds Spring and at Roaring River State Park, where numerous campers were evacuated. Between 1.50 and 5 inches of rain fell across much of the Ozarks in a 24 hour period. Some readings indicated that as much as 2.5 inches of rain fell in about a 30 minute period In Barry and Stone Counties. In addition to the flooding, several brief tornadoes occurred in Barry, Christian and Douglas Counties.

A National Weather Service storm survey determined that an EF0 tornado with maximum winds estimated at 85 mph moved along a 100 yard wide and 1.9 mile long path. The most significant damage was the destruction of a three car garage and several outbuildings near the start of the path. Minor damage occurred to three homes and numerous trees were snapped or uprooted.

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

15 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:58 UTC, 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 16:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:33 UTC and running to 17:02 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:46 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), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:12 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 2021 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.