EF1 tornado, Monett Arpt to Bonham, Missouri, May 8, 2024

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 8, 2024

Touchdown

4:25 PM CDT (21:25 UTC)

Lifted

4:46 PM CDT (21:46 UTC)

On the ground

21 minutes

Path length

10.8 miles (17.3 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$155,000

Counties

Lawrence and Barry counties

Touchdown point

36.910, -93.890

Lift-off point

36.940, -93.700

Record number

2405081525-01

19 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 trees uprooted. Several smaller trees snapped at trunk halfway up. Branches broken off. Metal plating from an outbuilding against a mailbox. Little to no damage to nearby houses.
• Trees uprooted near residence. No visible damage to residence.
• Multiple trees uprooted and snapped near residence. Damage to one roof looks to be from the fallen trees and tree limbs. No other damage to the houses nearby.
• All trees in yard of house uprooted. Some small trunks snapped halfway up. Damage to residence looks to be from the trees.

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

Two rounds of severe thunderstorms occurred on May 8, 2024. The first round occurred during the morning and early afternoon hours as a surface low pressure system approached the area from the southwest, pushing a strong frontal boundary and shortwave energy/lift into the region. For this round, thunderstorms were more elevated in nature, producing hail up to golf ball size, damaging winds, and flash flooding due to heavy rain.||The second round of severe thunderstorms occurred during the mid-afternoon and evening hours as stronger lift approached the frontal boundary and additional thunderstorms developed along the front. Supercells produced hail up to 4 inches in diameter, widespread wind damage, flash flooding, and an EF-1 tornado in Barry and Lawrence counties.

A NWS Survey team found EF-0 damage in northern Barry County as numerous large trees were uprooted. As the tornado continued to track northeast, it intensified to an EF-1 and caused damage to an outbuilding as well as the roofing material to a house just before crossing over the Barry/Lawrence County line, where it continued to track through southern Lawrence County.

This is a continuation of the tornado that touched down in northern Barry County. As it continued to track into Lawrence County, this tornado continued to cause EF-1 damage, resulting in downed powerlines, and roofing panels to be torn off of a barn. Continuing further northeast south of Aurora, a mobile home was flipped over, several trees were uprooted or snapped, powerlines were down, and several houses had roof damage.

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

30 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:55 UTC, 30 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:59 UTC and running to 21:43 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 19:32 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.

Monett (HFJ), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Springfield radar (KSGF), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:26 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

52 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.