EF1 tornado, Gladden to Stone Hill, Missouri, October 24, 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

October 24, 2021

Touchdown

6:34 PM CDT (23:34 UTC)

Lifted

6:46 PM CDT (23:46 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

8.2 miles (13.1 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$225,000

County

Dent County

Touchdown point

37.490, -91.450

Lift-off point

37.587, -91.366

Record number

2110241734-01

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 100 mph.

• Total collapse of a barn and small shed. Numerous trees snapped at the trunk.
• Multiple trees uprooted and large branches snapped.
• Portion of interior walls failed. Numerous trees uprooted or snapped.

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

A low pressure system tracked across the Central Plains into the Midwest, a trailing dry line and cold front interacted with an unstable air mass in a highly sheared environment to spark strong to severe storms during the afternoon and evening of the 24th. Two EF-1 tornadoes were produced from the strongest storms that moved across Camden County near Richland and in Dent County near Gladden.

A National Weather Service storm survey confirmed that an EF-1 tornado with winds estimated at 100 mph began near Gladden, MO. The tornado then caused some uplift to a portion of the roof on a house which resulted in the partial failure of an exterior wall near County Road 5510. The tornado continued traveling towards the northeast, where it uprooted and snapped numerous trees before completely destroying a barn and small shed as it crossed over Highway N southeast of Turtle, MO. Numerous additional trees were uprooted and snapped at their trunks as the tornado crossed County Road 5380 and continued into a heavily wooded area.

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

NWS Springfield, MO wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Oct 24, 6:18 PM CDT, 16 minutes earlier.

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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.

Fort Leonard Woo (TBN), 68 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The St Louis radar (KLSX), 144 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:34 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2021 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

16 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.