EF1 tornado, Tackner to Whitakerville, Missouri, April 17, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF1, preliminary

Date

April 17, 2026

Touchdown

7:19 PM CDT (00:19 UTC)

Lifted

7:26 PM CDT (00:26 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

5.9 miles (9.5 km)

Path width

0 yards (0 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Benton County

Touchdown point

38.212, -93.447

Lift-off point

38.267, -93.364

Highest wind the damage implies

90 mph

Surveyed by

NWS SGF

The office's name for it

Warsaw

Survey last edited

May 14, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

An NWS survey concluded an EF1 tornado touched down southwest of Warsaw, crossing the lake, and tracking just east of Highway 65. The tornado flipped several mobile homes resting on blocks, damaged signs and roofing associated with stores along Highway 65, and created a pattern of tree damage including many uprooted or snapped, surveyed through in-person and Sentinel-2 satellite surveys.

Written by NWS SGF in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

24 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 100 mph.

• Roofs and signs damaged with debris blown east and north
• Numerous mobile homes in a storage facility overturned
• Numerous trees uprooted, some snapped, falling north, east and south
• Windows broken at the visitor center as well

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

A vigorous low-pressure system and cold front pushed through the Plains and the Ozarks, interacting with a warm, moist air mass as a strong upper-level trough and a veered wind profile created high wind shear and instability. This set the stage for supercellular development that evolved into bowing line segments. This setup brought destructive straight-line wind gusts of 60-70 mph, with isolated gusts reaching up to 75 mph. Hail up to 2 inches occurred and 5 tornadoes touched down in Benton and Morgan Counties.

An National Weather Service survey concluded an EF1 tornado touched down southwest of Warsaw, crossing the lake, and tracking just east of Highway 65. The tornado flipped several mobile homes resting on blocks, damaged signs and roofing associated with stores along Highway 65, and created a pattern of tree damage including many uprooted or snapped, surveyed through in-person and Sentinel-2 satellite surveys. The tornado tracked for a little over 6 miles with a path width of 200 yards and maximum wind speeds of 90mph.

A National Weather Service survey concluded an EF0 tornado caused damage to a building on 83 and Highway MM southeast of Warsaw. This tornado is also damaged multiple trees in the area which was confirmed via Sentinel-2 satellite data analysis. The tornado had maximum winds of 80 mph and was on the ground for about 0.4miles with a width of 200 yards.

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

38 minutes of warning. NWS SGF issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:41 UTC, 38 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:29 UTC and running to 02:00 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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 Pleasant Hill radar (KEAX), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:21 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 2026 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

88 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

All 89 of them

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.