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EF3 tornado in Miller County, Arkansas

Tornado April 9, 2009 · Miller County, Arkansas

EF3
Rating
9.9 mi
Path length
850 yd
Path width
$1.0M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 850 yards (0.48 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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

This tornado initially touched down in southwestern Miller County, Arkansas along CR 80...snapping several pine trees about 2 miles south of Ravana. The tornado then moved toward the intersection of CR 31 and CR 32. Here, at its widest and strongest, the tornado uprooted and snapped numerous pine and oak trees, some 2 to 3 feet in diameter. The storm completely destroyed an outbuilding and mobile home, placing roofing material in a tree approximately a half mile away. Mostly EF1 damage was noted elsewhere as the tornado continued moving east-northeast across southern Miller County. Numerous pine and oak trees were either snapped or uprooted, with pieces of roofing material ripped from well-constructed homes. The tornado passed near the intersection of US-71 and AR-549, near the community of Doddridge, before lifting approximately 2.5 miles north-northeast of Kiblah AR.

The wider storm

A strong upper level storm system along with a surface dry line/front

over northeast Texas moved east during the evening hours of April 9th into the early morning hours of April 10th causing long lived supercell thunderstorms. These thunderstorms caused long track tornadoes to occur across southeast Oklahoma, southwest Arkansas, northeast Texas, and north Louisiana.

Began near Ravanna (33.0400, -94.0400).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 154465. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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