EF0 tornado, Phillipsburg to Russ, Missouri, April 1, 2024

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

April 1, 2024

Touchdown

11:20 PM CDT (04:20 UTC)

Lifted

11:27 PM CDT (04:27 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

2.2 miles (3.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Laclede County

Touchdown point

37.510, -92.680

Lift-off point

37.506, -92.641

Record number

2404012220-01

12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SGF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

• Outbuilding and minor tree damage with evidence of convergent flow. Minor tree and outbuilding damage to the west along Highway J was also noted but debris pattern was too limited to identify as being related to the tornado path.
• Trees laying east, south and north
• Trees laying to the south, east, and west. Some are snapped.
• Roofing panels blown to the north northeast

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

Severe thunderstorms brought damaging wind, large hail, and five tornadoes to the Missouri Ozarks from the evening of April 1st to the early morning hours of April 2nd. A tornado that occurred near Fair Grove was rated in EF-1. The four other tornadoes were rated EF-0 with three of them occurring from eastern Dallas County into Laclede County. The fourth EF-0 tornado occurred in St. James.||In addition to the tornadoes, storm surveys revealed several different swaths of damaging straight line wind speeds of 70-100 mph. Wind speeds of 90-100 mph caused roof damage to businesses in downtown Carthage with power poles and trees also snapped. Other swaths of significant wind damage occurred near Halltown, Elkland, and along the I-44 corridor from Waynesville to Rolla.||Several thunderstorms also produced hail from the size of quarters to tennis balls. Hail ranging from one to two inches in diameter occurred in an around Bolivar. Tennis ball size hail fell in the town of Maple Grove.

A NWS storm survey indicated an EF-0 tornado with peak winds of 80 mph uprooted or|snapped over 100 trees as it moved east southeast out of extreme eastern Dallas County and continued across extreme western Laclede Counties before lifting near the town of north northwest of Phillipsburg.

A NWS storm survey indicated an EF-0 tornado caused intermittent damage to outbuildings and trees along Highway J southeast of Phillipsburg. Some trees were uprooted and a few snapped with debris falling in a convergent pattern. Tornado width was 100 yards with maximum wind speeds of 70 to 80 mph.

A NWS storm survey concluded that an EF-0 tornado caused an intermittent path of damage to outbuildings including one large equipment barn. The associated convergent debris pattern of roofing panels and varying trees extended eastward along Camelia Road between Highway H and Royal Drive. The tornado had a width of 100 yards with maximum wind speeds of 80 mph.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:14 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 03:48 UTC and running to 08:00 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:44 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), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:20 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 2024 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.