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EF1 tornado in Craighead County, Arkansas

Tornado April 27, 2011 · Craighead County, Arkansas

EF1
Rating
1.6 mi
Path length
250 yd
Path width
$250K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 250 yards (0.14 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 tornado briefly touched down near Pekin Road near Bowman and moved northeast. The tornado lifted near Highland Drive in Bowman. Five homes and one business garage was damaged. Three mobile homes sustained roof damage. Two brick homes and one business garage also sustained roof damage. A storage shed was destroyed. A chain link fence was blown over. A few trees and tree limbs were knocked down.

The wider storm

A stationary front remained draped across Southern Missouri into Western Kentucky from April 24th, 2011 into April 25th, 2011. A very warm and unstable atmosphere was in place across the Mid-South ahead of the front. A low pressure system developed along the front and interacted with the unstable environment which helped produce several rounds of severe storms into the evening of April 26th, 2011. As a result of the severe storms, the front sank south during the early morning hours of April 27th, 2011 as a secondary low pressure system developed along the front. As a result, another round of severe storms fired during the afternoon hours ahead of the low pressure center. Additional severe storms fired along the trailing cold front. Tornadoes, large hail, damaging winds, flash flooding occurred as a result of the severe storms. Heavy rain from the continuous rounds of severe weather eventually resulted in record river flooding on a number of rivers in the region.

Began near Bowman (35.8025, -90.5074).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 303250. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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