Joplin Tornado (2011)

This is the beginning of the EF-5 tornado that impacted a large portion of the city of Joplin.

This tornado started in the very extreme northern portions of Newton County initially touching down one half mile southwest of the intersection of JJ Highway and Newton Road in Newton County. Several large trees were toppled before the tornado crossed into Jasper County and portions of south Joplin.

A strong upper level trough across the central plains region and a strong upper level disturbance along with a frontal boundary in the area produced numerous severe storms with a few supercells across southeast Kansas. One cyclic supercell associated with the system produced a very large and deadly EF-5 tornado that hit the city of Joplin and then spawned two separate tornadoes that moved across southwestern Missouri. A separate tornadic supercell produced an EF-3 tornado that moved into McDonald County from Northeastern Oklahoma.

Continuing thunderstorms lasted into May 23 as another line of thunderstorms moved across the region. This line of storms produced reports of large hail, damaging winds and a weak EF-0 tornado in south central Missouri. As the storms moved over the Joplin area, two police officers were struck by lightning while aiding in the post tornado efforts. One of the two officers later died of injuries from the lightning strike.