EF3 tornado, Rover to Greer, Missouri, March 14, 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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

March 14, 2025

Touchdown

9:36 PM CDT (02:36 UTC)

Lifted

10:06 PM CDT (03:06 UTC)

On the ground

30 minutes

Path length

23.5 miles (37.9 km)

Path width

800 yards (732 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$800,000

County

Oregon County

Touchdown point

36.607, -91.650

Lift-off point

36.764, -91.277

Record number

2503142036-01

67 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PAH and NWS SGF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 160 mph.

• Uprooted trees depicted by satellite.
• Uprooted trees detected by satellite.
• Good convergent signature with these upper trees
• Also entire groves of trees uprooted and some snapped

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

Severe thunderstorms occurred during the late afternoon and evening hours of March 14th. Seven tornadoes occurred east of Springfield including an EF-3 tornado in Bakersfield, Missouri. Large hail to the golfballs and damaging winds also occurred with these storms.

This is the beginning of a long-track EF-3 tornado that began south of Rover, MO and tracked northeast before lifting in southern Reynolds County. The peak wind speed was 165 mph with a maximum width of 800 yards. The tornado initially touched down around 2 miles northeast of Brandsville, then moved south of Rover where it pushed two homes off their foundation before continuing northeast through wooded areas. The tornado then took the roof off another home but left internal walls intact along Highway DD and again at the north end of County Road 331. It was also at this point that it caused the collapse of a pair of new high voltage transmission line metal support polls rated to withstand 90 mph winds before going back into wooded areas where satellite imagery depicted periodic uprooted trees into the Mark Twain National Forest. Thousands of trees were uprooted along its path. The tornado then traveled northeast into Shannon and eventually Carter Counties.

A 24 mile long tornado path was determined by a combination of NWS survey, storm reports, and satellite damage to have moved from just north of Koshkonong to 2 miles north of Alton before lifting 8 miles northeast of Alton. Maximum width was approximately a half mile wide though it was likely considerably narrower in places. While much of the path was to trees along with several outbuildings, the tornado damaged a few homes including a south facing ground level home off County Road 402 where it caused EF3 damage. The track continued northeast of Alton into the Mark Twain National Forest with satellite detecting an intermittent path of uprooted trees to near the Eleven Point River at Turners Mill.

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

17 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:19 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:03 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:01 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.

West Plains (UNO), 45 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Springfield radar (KSGF), 183 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:36 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

53 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.