EF1 tornado, Selmore to Christian Center, Missouri, December 5, 2021

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

December 5, 2021

Touchdown

10:02 PM CST (04:02 UTC)

Lifted

10:07 PM CST (04:07 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.4 miles (5.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$150,000

County

Christian County

Touchdown point

36.951, -93.253

Lift-off point

36.948, -93.191

Record number

2112052202-01

4 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.

• Pool house pushed off foundation, trees uprooted in a convergent manner
• Outbuilding destroyed and large limbs blown down.

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

Strong to severe storms formed along and south of Interstate 44 during the evening of the 5th, as a southeastward moving cold front interacted with an unusually unstable airmass over the region. Sufficient vertical wind shear was also present, leading to the development of supercells embedded within a line of storms from northeast Oklahoma eastward into northern Arkansas and southern Missouri. Reports of up to golf ball size hail were received near Table Rock Lake. One EF-1 tornado developed near Highlandville in Christian County, and caused damage to trees and outbuildings.

A National Weather Service storm survey determined that an EF-1 tornado touched down northeast of Highlandville, MO during the late evening of December 5th. A pool house was blown off its foundation, several outbuildings were heavily damaged, and numerous trees were uprooted along the tornado's nearly 3.5 mile path. The maximum estimated winds with the tornado reached 100mph and had a damage path up to 100 yards wide.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:55 UTC and running to 05:00 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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:42 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), 35 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:01 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

2 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.