EF2 tornado, Porter, Missouri, July 24, 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

July 24, 2023

Touchdown

2:10 PM CDT (19:10 UTC)

Lifted

2:12 PM CDT (19:12 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$400,000

County

Scott County

Touchdown point

36.936, -89.486

Lift-off point

36.934, -89.481

Record number

2307241310-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

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

Thunderstorms rapidly formed in a strongly unstable air mass during the heat of the afternoon. The storms organized into a line of storms over extreme southeast Missouri for a brief time. A couple of the storms produced damaging winds and a brief tornado. The storms occurred ahead of a slow-moving weak cold front that extended from central Indiana to the Ozarks of southwest Missouri.

A brief EF-2 tornado struck a homestead near the community of Bertrand in Scott County, MO. The tornado started on County Highway 532 just west of the intersection of Highway O. The tornado shifted and damaged several grain bins and destroyed two barns. A person in a truck nearby had their vehicle partially lifted briefly by the tornado. After crossing Highway O, the tornado severely damaged a house and adjacent auxiliary home, removing the roofs and collapsing some exterior walls of both buildings. Two people suffered minor injuries in the primary residence when they were cut by flying debris. After damaging some trees behind the buildings, the tornado dissipated as it moved into an agricultural field east of the residences. Peak winds were estimated near 115 mph.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:22 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.

Sikeston (SIK), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 65 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:12 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

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.