EF0 tornado, Clay and Clinton counties, Missouri, April 23, 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 23, 2026

Touchdown

9:11 PM CDT (02:11 UTC)

Lifted

9:15 PM CDT (02:15 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.4 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Clay and Clinton counties

Touchdown point

39.455, -94.492

Lift-off point

39.463, -94.469

Highest wind the damage implies

75 mph

Surveyed by

NWS EAX

The office's name for it

Southern Clinton County MO

Survey last edited

April 26, 2026

Record number

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

This tornado developed near 200th Street on the Clay County side of the Clinton/Clay county border. It produced minor tree damage along 200th Street before moving northeast toward 204th Street. Several trees were visibly snapped near their tops on the north side of the tree grove near Owl Creek. The tornado then damaged several trees and power poles along 204th Street. Metal debris was strewn onto trees and property at a residence along the road. The tornado then tracked north of the road, damaging several more trees before dissipating west of Fightmaster Road. Notably, there was minor/sporadic tree and limb damage to the southeast of the tornado track, but as all of this damage was northeast-facing, this appears to be straight-line wind damage.

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

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

• While trunk is snapped, noted rot calls into some question the peak winds.
• Shed thrown across the street from south southwest to north northeast.
• No other damage, hard to justify ef 1 with only tree damage
• Unfinished construction, wall fell

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

15 minutes of warning. NWS EAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:56 UTC, 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:22 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:56 UTC and running to 03:35 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 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.

The Pleasant Hill radar (KEAX), 75 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:11 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

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

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.