EF2 Tornado — Union, Arkansas

2023-06-18 · near Wilmington Lndg, Union, Arkansas

Event narrative

During the evening hours on Sunday, June 18th, a strong thunderstorm developed about 12 miles to the northeast of El Dorado, Arkansas in Union County. Shortly after forming, the storm became severe and started to rotate. The storm went on to produce an EF-2 tornado, touching down near the Cypress Creek Oil Field to the north of Moro Bay Highway near Stowe Ditch Road. At this location, there were numerous trees either snapped or uprooted from winds around 80 to 85 mph. As the tornado tracked to the southeast towards Moro Bay Highway, it strengthened some which was evident from the more widespread tree damage. As it crossed Moro Bay Highway, it did not cause any major damage to structures despite there being some along the path. From there,

the road network became sparse, but some additional tree damage was observed along Feldmann Road to the southeast of Moro Bay Highway.

From there, the tornado continued to track southeast, causing significant damage along Pigeon Hill Road. The tornado continued to strengthen as it moved toward New London Road. This is where the greatest destruction was observed as the tornado moved over

a chicken farm and five chicken coops. Three of the five chicken coops were completely destroyed with additional damage to a few other barns and outbuildings. With the amount of tree damage surrounding the chicken coops, along with the total destruction of three of them, the tornado was rated EF-2 with maximum winds at 115 mph. This damage was short-lived and confined to this farm on the west and east side of New London Road. Additionally, there was a tree that fell on a manufactured home just to the north of the farm. The owners of the farm who lived in a brick home were able to call the family in the manufactured home after getting the tornado warning and had them rush to their house. So no one was in the the manufactured home when it took on damage. From there, the tornado continued to track to the southeast with more significant tree damage off Christian Road and North Road to the north of Phelps Road before lifting.

Wider weather episode

Areas of deep convection began to develop late in the afternoon through the evening of June 17th and into the early morning hours of June 18th from Southeast Oklahoma to the Ark-La-Tex region. A stationary front was draped from west-northwest to east-southeast through the region, with temperatures generally in the mid to upper 90s and dew points around 80 degrees. These conditions contributed to extreme instability with around 5500-6000 J/kg. As a result, very vigorous updraft development occurred over the next several hours, eventually maturing into some supercell structures given the 45-55 knots of bulk shear. The threat for damaging wind gusts quickly materialized with numerous reports of damaging wind gusts across Southwest Arkansas along with an isolated tornado in Union County later that evening.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.2599, -92.4481)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1115538. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.