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EF1 tornado in Lafayette County, Arkansas

Tornado April 2, 2025 · Lafayette County, Arkansas

EF1

Rating

0.3 mi

Path length

75 yd

Path width

$50K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 75 yards (0.04 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

A brief EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 95 mph touched down over a wooded area just west of Highway 53 and just south of Lafayette Road 249, where multiple trees were uprooted. This tornado crossed Highway 53 and snapped/uprooted several additional trees and tree tops before lifting.

The wider storm

A warm and unstable air mass was in place across the Ark-La-Tex region on April 2nd ahead of an approaching cold front. With MLCAPE values near 2000 J/kg, along with strong effective bulk shear and steep mid-level lapse rates, isolated strong to severe thunderstorms rapidly developed and intensified along the front as it moved along the Interstate 30 corridor of Southwest Arkansas during the afternoon and evening hours. Multiple hazards were reported with these storms, which included two separate EF-1 tornadoes in Lafayette County along with a strong downburst in Columbia County.

Began near Lake Erling (33.1762, -93.5273).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF1 Lafayette County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1255659. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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