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EF0 tornado in Howell County, Missouri

Tornado May 23, 2011 · Howell County, Missouri

EF0
Rating
1.0 mi
Path length
100 yd
Path width
$10K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 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

An EF-0 tornado touched down 4 miles east northeast of Moody. Large limbs were broken and one home had minor roof damage. An unsecured carport was thrown 150 yards through the air. One small tree was uprooted.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Moody (36.5400, -91.9200).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 306901. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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