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EF0 tornado in Perry County, Missouri

Tornado May 8, 2009 · Perry County, Missouri

EF0
Rating
2.2 mi
Path length
50 yd
Path width
$7K
Damage as recorded
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

The tornado was videotaped by a person at the Perryville airport and shown on local media outlets. The path was visible in a wheat field along County Road 934. Dozens of trees were down near the path, apparently due to inflow winds. Eyewitness accounts of the tornado were obtained. Peak winds were estimated near 65 mph.

The wider storm

A mature, very intense derecho moved rapidly east along a stationary front across the Mid Mississippi Valley into the Lower Ohio Valley. With a very moist and unstable atmosphere, along with strongly veering winds aloft, embedded tornadic supercells were associated with the derecho. Widespread damaging winds were the primary impact. The bowing portion of the system caused extensive damage from the Poplar Bluff area west. The comma head at the northern end of the bow caused locally catastrophic damage along and north of a Marble Hill to Jackson line. Winds were estimated slightly over 100 mph there.

Began near Mc Bride (37.8300, -89.8703).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 164155. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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