Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2026
EF0 tornado, Barton County, Missouri, March 5, 2026
This EF0 tornado ran 1.7 miles across Barton County on March 5, 2026, touching down at 8:17 PM CST. It killed nobody.
Preliminary. This is NWS SGF's damage survey, filed in the Damage Assessment Toolkit as Iantha. The rating, the path and the casualties are the survey's and can change while it is revised. The Storm Prediction Center compiles the official record of 2026 from these surveys and publishes it in the spring of 2027; this page moves to that tornado's permanent address when it does.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The survey
- Rating, as surveyed
- EF0, preliminary
- Date
- March 5, 2026
- Touchdown
- 8:17 PM CST (02:17 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:19 PM CST (02:19 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 1.7 miles (2.7 km)
- Path width
- 0 yards (0 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Barton County
- Touchdown point
- 37.529, -94.377
- Lift-off point
- 37.539, -94.350
- Highest wind the damage implies
- 80 mph
- Surveyed by
- NWS SGF
- The office's name for it
- Iantha
- Survey last edited
- March 10, 2026
- Record number
- None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.
What the survey found
An EF0 with winds up to 80 mph and a width of 50 yards wide initially overturned portions of irrigation pivots approximately 1 mile northeast of Iantha, MO. The tornado destroyed an outbuilding along Northwest 30th Lane and turned easterly. Roofing components from the outbuilding were spread easterly over a mile away and some rafters embedding in fields up to 200 yards away. Several power poles were broken as well. South of the path, two sets of pivots had sections blown down northward, along with estimated 70 mph winds that downed tree limbs and damaged another outbuilding.
Written by NWS SGF in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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 air that afternoon
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.
Springfield, MO (KSGF), 00:00Z
2.3 hours before the tornado, 86 km from the path. March 6, 2026.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 232 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -25 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1277 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1140 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 93 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 191 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.8 K/km
Springfield, MO (KSGF), 12:00Z
9.7 hours after it, 86 km from the path. March 6, 2026.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 70 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -206 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 36 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1241 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 28 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 323 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 397 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.5 K/km
The radar
The Springfield radar (KSGF), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:16 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2026 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 5, 2026
6 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.
What this means
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.
Sources
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.