EF1 tornado, Bolivar Mem Arpt to Half Way, Missouri, May 27, 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

May 27, 2021

Touchdown

11:51 AM CDT (16:51 UTC)

Lifted

11:52 AM CDT (16:52 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$300,000

County

Polk County

Touchdown point

37.600, -93.440

Lift-off point

37.600, -93.439

Record number

2105271051-01

6 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 94 mph.

• Multiple eyewitness accounts of rotating debris, including some surveyed to have fallen west of Highway 13.
• Trees laying to the west and east

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

Strong to severe storms with heavy rainfall developed during the late morning of the 27th in association with an upper low pressure system. Widespread flash flooding and wind damage occurred over the region through the late afternoon. There were two brief tornadoes that developed along the leading edge of a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) to the southwest and southeast of Bolivar. Numerous reports of heavy rainfall between 1 and 4 inches were received across southwestern Missouri. Rainfall accumulations over 5 inches occurred in Joplin and led to flash flooding in the city. Another round of flash flooding occurred along Kelly Creek in Monett and several roadways were closed.

A National Weather Service survey determined that an EF1 tornado briefly touched down destroying a workshop building and causing significant damage to another. Several trees were uprooted and multiple travel trailers suffered minor damage. The tornado was very short lived but witnessed by multiple people. Maximum wind speeds with the tornado were estimated at 95 mph and a width of 50 yards.

A National Weather Service survey determined that an EF1 tornado touched down and traveled 1.2 miles with maximum estimated windspeeds of 95 mph. Along the path of the tornado a large hay barn was heavily damaged and multiple trees were uprooted. The width of the tornado was near 50 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 16:26 UTC and running to 20:08 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:10 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), 41 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:50 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

5 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.