EF2 Tornado — Cape Girardeau, Missouri

2025-05-16 · near Burfordville, Cape Girardeau, Missouri

Event narrative

An EF2 tornado, with max winds of 125mph, touched down about 1.5 miles east of Burfordville in Cape Girardeau County. It tracked east for about 1.4 miles before lifting 3 miles east of Burfordville. The worst damage occurred along County Road 363 where a home suffered significant roof damage. Further east along County Road 343 there was an outbuilding with significant damage along with a mobile home that had minor damage. Several trees were uprooted along the path as well. Debris was lofted far enough to be spotted near the intersection of MO-72 and County Road 335.

Wider weather episode

A 500mb shortwave trough moved across the Upper Midwest with height falls across the Quad State during the afternoon and evening of the 16th. The exit region of a strong (125kt) upper level jet was positioned across the area as well. Low-level winds strengthened during the afternoon to 50kts at 850mb. Following the early AM convection, ample sunshine allowed for a very unstable airmass to develop with CAPE of 3000-4000J/kg with deep layer shear of 65-70kts. Late afternoon, STP peaked at 9 near the Wabash/Ohio River confluence with effective SRH of 300-400m2/s2. Mid-level lapse rates peaked at 8-8.5C/km for much of the Quad State with significant hail parameter of 3-5 mid-afternoon and DCAPE peaking at 1200-1500J/kg. Initial storm formation was discrete with very large hail and tornadoes, with storms becoming more linear later in the evening with the approach of a cold front.

The afternoon supercells produced three tornadoes, one of which was a 16 mile EF-3 track from Stoddard County to Scott County which resulted in 2 fatalities and 10 injuries in Scott County, along with over a dozen homes heavily damaged or destroyed. Both fatalities occurred on Sloanville Drive west of Sandywoods, with those areas receiving the worst of the damage. An EF-1 tornado occurred east of Morley in Scott County, and an EF-2 tornado occurred east of Burfordville in Cape Girardeau County. Numerous hail reports were submitted with the supercell storms including baseball size hail in Arab and tennis ball size hail northwest of Van Buren. Towards the evening hours, straight-line wind damage occurred as the storms took on a more linear structure.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.3649, -89.7828)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1273019. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.