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EF0 tornado in Butler County, Missouri

Tornado March 30, 2025 · Butler County, Missouri

EF0

Rating

8.6 mi

Whole path

50 yd

Path width

$55K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Ripley County → Butler County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

An EF-1 tornado began in Ripley County two miles east northeast of Oxly and moved eastward crossing into Butler County just north of the Little Black River. It caused EF-0 damage along its path in Butler County. It caused damage to the roof of a mobile home and shingle damage to another house. It also damaged several trees along its path. The tornado crossed Highway 67 and ended about three miles south southwest of Harviell. The estimated peak wind was 85 mph. The total path length was about 8.5 miles. Sporadic 70-80 mph straight line winds occurred south of the tornado track.

The wider storm

In the base of an approaching upper-level trough, strong mid and upper-level jets overspread the middle Mississippi Valley on the afternoon of the 30th. Steep mid-level lapse rates contributed to rapid destabilization, as well, setting the stage for a widespread severe thunderstorm event. As the cold front approached, thunderstorms rapidly intensified and quickly formed into line segments upon reaching southeast Missouri in the mid-afternoon. Large hail was common with many locations reporting quarter size up to golf ball size hail. However, one storm produced an EF-1 tornado over southeast Ripley that moved east into southwest Butler County. It mainly damaged trees and a few outbuildings along its path. This same storm went on to produce baseball size hail in Qulin. The Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (KCGI) measured a 58 mph gust with another storm that went on to produce an EF-1 tornado just across the Mississippi River in Alexander County Illinois.

Began near Parks (36.6078, -90.5923).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1247506. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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