EF1 tornado, Cass County, 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

5:19 PM CDT (22:19 UTC)

Lifted

5:29 PM CDT (22:29 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.7 km)

Path width

0 yards (0 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cass County

Touchdown point

38.797, -94.540

Lift-off point

38.817, -94.459

Highest wind the damage implies

110 mph

Surveyed by

NWS EAX

The office's name for it

Belton

Survey last edited

April 22, 2026

Record number

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

UPDATED: An intense line of thunderstorms moving across Miami County Kansas into Cass County Missouri through 5 PM on Friday April 17, 2026 produced an embedded circualation which resulted in an EF 1 Tornado. This tornado began on the south side of Belton, MO around 5:19 PM CDT and continued northeast resulting in structure and tree damage through a neighborhood and across the Belton Cemetery before moving more east-northeast. Past the cemetery, the tornado weakend briefly to an EF 0, before increasing in intensity back to an EF 1 as it entered another neighborhood south of Highway 58 and S. Mullen Rd. Sporadic EF 0 damage was found east of S. Mullen Rd. Toward I-49/US 71, the tornado weakend and sporadic EF 0 damage was found crossing Hwy 58 and through neighborhoods southwest and just east of Johnston Lake. The tornado ended around 5:29 PM CDT. Thank you to Belton Emergency Management and Fire Department for assisting in the Survey.

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

78 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS EAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Fence blown out, debris blown into fence on opposite side
• east pitch of roof in backyard to the west
• Headstones lifted and scattered
• Photos from this small strip mall show lifting and ripping off of roofing material.

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

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate 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.

Lee s Summit (LXT), 20 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), 20 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:16 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2026 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

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

All 90 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.