EF2 tornado, Baring, Missouri, August 4, 2023

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

August 4, 2023

Touchdown

11:13 PM CDT (04:13 UTC)

Lifted

11:15 PM CDT (04:15 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.6 km)

Path width

450 yards (411 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

County

Knox County

Touchdown point

40.241, -92.196

Lift-off point

40.257, -92.217

Record number

2308042213-01

34 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 122 mph.

• Grain bins removed from foundation and thrown a quarter to half mile down wind.
• Older machine shed completely removed

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

An MCV moved through northern sections of Missouri during the evening of August 4th into the early morning hours of August 5th. Widespread showers and storms developed. Some of the storms became severe. There were some damaging winds reported as well as two tornadoes. One tornado moved through Baring, MO with most of the town sustaining some kind of damage. Also, two people sustained minor injuries. Another tornado developed in Adams County in Illinois near Marcelline.

The tornado began on the southeast side of town just southeast of the Highway K and Dairy Avenue intersection. The tornado quickly strengthened as it moved northwest producing EF2 damage southwest of the intersection. A farm outbuilding was completely destroyed, several grain bins were thrown 1/4 to 1/2 mile downwind, and a home was heavily damaged with the roof and several walls removed. The tornado then crossed Highway K and the railroad tracks and moved through the center of the town of Baring. In Baring, 6-7 businesses and 62 homes were damaged. Notable was the post office which was heavily damaged with the removal of the roof and several walls. The tornado then exited town tracking to the northwest producing damage to a farm outbuilding on the east side of Highway 15 and damage to trees on the west side of the highway. The tornado dissipated shortly thereafter. Overall the tornado was rated EF2 with a path length of 1.64 miles. The max path width was 450 yards. Two people sustained minor injuries and no deaths were reported.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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 Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 204 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:14 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 2023 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.