EF2 tornado, Pilot Grove to Lamine, Missouri, April 2, 2025

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

April 2, 2025

Touchdown

8:34 AM CDT (13:34 UTC)

Lifted

8:40 AM CDT (13:40 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

6.1 miles (9.9 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Cooper County

Touchdown point

38.864, -92.932

Lift-off point

38.933, -92.860

Record number

2504020734-01

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

• Barndominium style building with significant damage. Roof ripped off and garage completely destroyed. Walls of garage were bolted down to concrete every few feet. Structure was relatively new and well built.

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

During the morning hours of April 2nd, storms brought severe weather to portions of Missouri.

A tornado with an estimated peak wind of 115 mph (EF-2) traveled for around 6.3 miles across portions of western Cooper County, Missouri, impacting the town of Pilot Grove and surrounding areas. The tornado damage path began just southwest of downtown Pilot Grove, where it caused some minor damage to an outbuilding at a farmstead. The tornado then traveled to the northeast, where it caused minor damage to the roofs of homes on W Bock Street and the Katy Manor on Prospect Street. It then caused damage to several structures along W Harris Street near the intersection of W 3rd Street. In this location, a manufactured home was thrown 100 feet off its cinder blocks and completely destroyed. Large trees were uprooted onto the roof of a home next to the destroyed manufactured home, and an outbuilding was destroyed. The tornado continued to move to the north northeast, where it caused severe damage to a newly well built barndominium style home along Route M just south of Immele Road. After this, the tornado roughly paralleled Route 135, where it damaged numerous houses, completely destroyed outbuildings, caused extensive tree damage, and snapped numerous power poles. The area between the barndominium near Route M and Immele Road and along Route 135 up to Chouteau Springs Rd is where the most extensive damage occurred, with maximum estimated winds up to 115 mph (EF-2), as well as the widest part of the tornado damage path (up to 200 yards). The tornado then turned more northward, with limited observed damage. A small outbuilding was severely damaged along the south outer road of Interstate 70. No damage was observed north of Interstate 70.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS EAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 13:33 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 13:44 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:28 UTC and running to 15:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:48 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.

Booneville (VER), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Pleasant Hill radar (KEAX), 119 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:31 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 2025 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

87 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 88 of them

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.