EF0 tornado, Qulin, Missouri, August 8, 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

August 8, 2021

Touchdown

7:14 PM CDT (00:14 UTC)

Lifted

7:15 PM CDT (00:15 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

County

Butler County

Touchdown point

36.640, -90.302

Lift-off point

36.640, -90.300

Record number

2108081814-01

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

• Porch covering was torn off and thrown back westward behind the house. It caused additional roof damage to the backside of the house as it came down. A couple trees on the property also were snapped.

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

A line of intense thunderstorms tracked eastward ahead of a mid-level short wave trough progressing into the middle Mississippi Valley. The storms were located within a corridor of unstable air characterized by cape in excess of 2000 J/kg. The most intense storm was located on the southern end of the line, near Poplar Bluff. This storm grew strong enough to produce an isolated brief tornado and a damaging wind gust.

A brief EF-0 tornado touched down at a residence along Highway 53 northwest of Qulin. It lifted the front porch roof over the house. The porch roof was thrown westward, causing significant damage to the back side of the house roof before landing in the back yard. A few trees were snapped on the property as well. A funnel cloud was witnessed dipping up and down. Photos were taken of the funnel cloud. Peak winds were estimated to be 85 mph.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:14 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:44 UTC and running to 01:00 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. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 Paducah radar (KPAH), 144 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:13 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

9 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.