EF1 Tornado — Madison, Arkansas

2024-05-26 · near Clifty, Madison, Arkansas

Event narrative

This is the second segment of a two-segment tornado. The tornado moved northeast into northern Madison County, crossing County Road 8315, where numerous trees were uprooted and snapped. The tornado continued northeast crossing Highway 127 north of Clifty, where it damaged outbuildings, downed power lines, uprooted trees and snapped some large trunks. The tornado crossed Highway 23 south of the Carroll County line, where it further uprooted trees before dissipating just east of the highway. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in this segment of the tornado was 100 to 110 mph.

Wider weather episode

Severe thunderstorms developed over western Oklahoma during the afternoon of the 25th, along a sharpening dry line, and moved east across Oklahoma during the evening, and across northwestern Arkansas during the early morning hours of the 26th. The atmosphere east of the dry line across Oklahoma and western Arkansas was moist and very unstable. Wind fields above the ground and deep layer wind shear strengthened during the afternoon through the early morning hours of the 26th, as an upper level disturbance translated into the Southern Plains. Additionally, low level wind shear increased late in the evening and continued very strong into the early morning hours of the 26th. These conditions were very supportive for the development of supercell thunderstorms. One of these supercells became particularly intense and long-tracked as it moved across northeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas, producing multiple tornadoes, several of which were strong. Large hail to baseball size and swaths of damaging straight-line wind also occurred, resulting in considerable damage.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.2510, -93.8700)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1184536. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.