EF0 tornado, Marion to Hartsburg, Missouri, April 17, 2026

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0, preliminary

Date

April 17, 2026

Touchdown

8:08 PM CDT (01:08 UTC)

Lifted

8:12 PM CDT (01:12 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Cole and Boone counties

Touchdown point

38.658, -92.355

Lift-off point

38.696, -92.312

Highest wind the damage implies

85 mph

Surveyed by

NWS LSX

Survey last edited

May 4, 2026

Record number

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

Proposed track by GIS Mutual Aid.

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

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• Minor tree damage noted on high res satellite imagery. Point added by GIS Mutual Aid.

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

The environment during the afternoon of April 17th was primed for the development of severe thunderstorms. Semi-discrete convection blossomed ahead of a cold front during the early afternoon, causing wind damage and large hail in portions of central and east-central Missouri. Later in the afternoon, thunderstorms more closely tied to the cold front produced 4 tornadoes in Missouri.

A brief tornado touched down along High Point Road and travelled northeast. The tornado caused tree damage before crossing the Missouri River into Boone County.

The tornado entered Boone County where it caused tree damage near and in Hartsburg. It then dissipated.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:42 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:33 UTC and running to 03:08 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 00:59 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.

Jefferson City (JEF), 18 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The St Louis radar (KLSX), 143 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:07 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.